


we are trembling flowers

by snapchat (orphan_account)



Category: Produce 101 (TV), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Bodyguard, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Historical Inaccuracy, I'm Sorry, M/M, Modern Royalty, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, side jinbyung, when i say slow burn i literally mean a forest fire but ur burning one leaf per minute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-07-27 11:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20045281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/snapchat
Summary: When the Crown Prince of South Korea asks for the favor to top all favors, it's hard to say no.





	we are trembling flowers

**Author's Note:**

> yes, here it is. the walmart goong au literally no one asked for. this fic was fueled entirely by [this particular cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0t1wpql-H0) of one of my favorite songs. dedicated to m, who is my sws soulmate and the loml, and to k & n who single (double?)-handedly forced me to finish this fic despite my many attempts at scrapping it.

It starts, as most things do, with a press conference gone terribly, _terribly_ wrong.

Seungwoo’s insulated from palace politics to the highest degree possible, partially by his own intentional doing and partially by an unintentional technological inadequacy on his part. It definitely helps that he doesn’t know how Twitter works, forgot his Instagram password two seconds after Byungchan made him one, and only ever opens Naver to check on updates for his favorite football club (usually dismal, but he loves rooting for underdogs). 

Today in particular, however, his innate grandfatherly grasp of current events is his ultimate downfall. 

“Can you just—” Seungwoo buries his face in his hands for a solid few seconds, wondering distantly if he’s at too early an age to retire to an idyllic life on the mountainside of some forgotten country. That’d be nice. He wouldn’t mind building a shack for himself if he had to. “Can you just take ten steps back? Breathe? Repeat everything you just said to me.” 

Yohan, to his credit, is trying his very best to breathe. He’s new to the job, wasn’t born into it like some of them—like _Seungwoo_—and he’s very much so still bright-eyed and ill-prepared for the unforgivable pace of life within palace walls, a rarity among the ranks these days. In a way, Yohan kind of reminds Seungwoo of Byungchan, who’s since left the guard to go soul-searching in America. Overall, he’s a good kid. He’s also very, very excited about something that, if Seungwoo’s heard properly, might be the bane of Seungwoo’s existence for the next however-long-eternity.

“The press conference,” Yohan tries again, talking much slower than he was thirty seconds ago when he’d tumbled into the guards’ quarters red-faced and stammering. “Did you watch the press conference, hyung? When Wooseok hy—I, I mean when the Crown Prince—he—”

From a few feet away, Seungwoo’s phone vibrates angrily once. He ignores it. Tries, perhaps in vain, to coax coherent sentences out of Yohan instead. But then it vibrates again.

And again.

_And again._

“Sorry, what about the press conference?” Seungwoo asks, reaching over to grapple with his phone.

“I just wanted to say congratulations! I didn’t know. I mean, I don’t think anyone knew? Well, I guess that was the point… but yeah! Congratulations, hyung! That’s so crazy, so wild… You guys were so good at hiding it, you know? I never would have suspected a thing and, oh, well, I guess that was the point, like I said, but—”

His phone continues to vibrate and Seungwoo briefly contemplates throwing it into a pot of boiling water, his gaze barely skimming the unread text messages and missed calls before he processes what Yohan’s said.

Seungwoo squints, his confusion evident because Yohan looks a little lost too. “Congratulations on what?”

Yohan, bless his soul, looks so genuinely happy for Seungwoo that Seungwoo almost tacks on a _Thanks, I think?_

“On your relationship,” Yohan says, effectively snapping Seungwoo out of any sleep-induced trance he’d been traipsing.

“On my _what_?” 

“Your relationship.” Yohan grins from ear-to-ear in spite of being forced to repeat himself constantly for the past twenty minutes. He says it a third time, just for good measure: “Your relationship with the Crown Prince?”

Seungwoo’s phone vibrates one more time and he sees a text message float to the top of his notifications.

**Kim Wooseok**

can we talk? 

Right. So. Idyllic life on the mountainside. No more bullshit. Maybe if he’s lucky he’ll die a valiant death fighting a tiger or something. At this point, Seungwoo would prefer that to what’s to come. Are there even tigers on the mountainside? He’ll have to look into it—he’s in the market for _complete isolation._

“I have to go,” Seungwoo says. 

Yohan grins, eyebrows raised, looking much too suggestive for his own good. “Romantic,” he says. “I got your back, hyung,” he adds with a thumbs up, and Seungwoo’s much too preoccupied with the shitstorm coming his way to even humor it. 

* * *

_BREAKING NEWS! CROWN PRINCE’S SECRET BOYFRIEND REVEALED! BIG CHANGES IN THE PALACE AHEAD?_

* * *

The Han family has devoted their services to the _goonggwol_, to the royal palace, for as long as Seungwoo can remember. 

Since the day he could walk he walked to protect. At least, that’s what the old man always told him—_reminded him_ every single day Seungwoo started to veer off-course and begin fantasizing about a simpler life where his decisions weren’t rooted in the well-being of those far more prominent than himself. He doesn’t stray too much these days; he’s come to terms with his future, found peace with it. The bursts of rebellion he used to wrestle with are distant childhood memories now. He can’t remember the last time he felt any strong urge to get away from the palace. Seungwoo supposes it helps that the person he’s more or less expected to be the shadow of is someone he’s devoted to protecting, someone he’s fond of. 

Usually, at least. 

_Usually_ fond of. 

“Sorry,” is the first thing Wooseok says to him, which is a lot considering the younger man is usually slow to apologize when the situation calls for it the most. “It just kind of… _happened_.” 

Kim Wooseok, the Crown Prince of South Korea, is presently hiding from his extremely irate parents. The whole ‘hiding’ thing never lasts long with members of the royal family, but Wooseok is proportionately better at evading parental wrath the larger the mess he’s created is.

And today’s mess is a record-breaker.

“I just,” Wooseok starts, and he exasperatedly shuts his mouth before he can let a sigh out. He has dead leaves in his hair and Seungwoo makes a mental note to suggest they establish a new secret meeting place that isn’t the ugliest patch of woods the property has to offer. “I just wanted them to stop asking questions. I wanted _everyone_ to stop asking questions.” 

Seungwoo has known Wooseok since _Wooseok_ could walk. He’s watched Wooseok learn to run, learn to _pace_ himself; he’s watched Wooseok balance a heavy crown on his head since he could speak. 

To the masses, the Crown Prince is nothing but a figurehead. Magazines and tabloids paint him out to be a caricature of who he really is, emphasizing his introversion and calling him cold, criticizing his missteps while ignoring his accomplishments. He’s a remarkably put-together person in spite of all of the backlash that seems to follow him—the future _King_—like a moth to light. Maybe it’s the years of familiarity that draw Seungwoo to dig a little deeper: he knows it can’t be as easy as Wooseok makes it look. 

“Wooseok.” Seungwoo bites back a sigh of his own, running a hand through his hair. He ducks a little to reach into Wooseok’s nook, avoiding a stray branch that might have thwacked him in the mouth otherwise. Without saying anything, Seungwoo extends a hand and waits for Wooseok to take it. “Come on.”

Wooseok doesn’t ask questions, not to Seungwoo. He takes his hand, allowing Seungwoo to pull him out from the safe space he’s made for himself among dying trees, and stands perfectly still while Seungwoo brushes twigs and stray leaves out of his hair and off of his clothes. 

“You could have said something if you wanted to date me so badly,” Seungwoo teases. It’s not the time to joke, but it’s hard to do much else when there’s a waver to Wooseok’s gaze, like he’s running through a thousand and one worst case scenarios in his mind all on his lonesome. He takes Wooseok’s hand again, poised to lead him back to his room himself. “It’s fine. I wish you’d warned me, but it can’t be helped. What’s done is done. You need to talk to your parents about it. They’ll figure out how to do damage control and it’ll all be okay.” He’s a little impressed at himself for managing to speak so clearly, but it’s second nature with Wooseok. Seungwoo’s used to being the optimist between the two of them. “This time tomorrow, everyone will forget what happened.”

Wooseok stops walking. “That’s… the thing.” 

Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that this is the boy who will someday lead the nation. When Wooseok is like this—out of his professional garb, thick glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, hair sticking out where errant branches tried to keep him rooted in place—it’s hard to believe that the same boy who crawled into Seungwoo’s bed when he was six years old, eyes and hands two different shades of red, biting back tears after being scolded by his calligraphy teacher, is a prince, soon-to-be king. 

“What is?” Any second now and Yohan will come tumbling through the weeds, frantic, because he’s the only one taking the task of tracking Wooseok down seriously. The other guards know, are confident that Wooseok will show up when he’s ready. That, and Seungyoun hates playing hide-and-seek. 

“I’m going to prove my parents wrong,” Wooseok explains, peering up at Seungwoo from behind the lenses of his glasses. His gaze is steadfast, unwavering now, an almost unfamiliar sense of confidence emanating from his every word. He’s talking like he does when there are a million cameras in front of his face: practiced, poised, a _prince_. “They don’t think I can lead Korea alone, and I think they’re right. But that doesn’t mean I have to marry some ambassador’s kid.” 

Seungwoo looks down at their hands when Wooseok squeezes purposefully. 

“I’ve thought about it,” he continues, “and I just need some time. I don’t want reporters asking who I’m marrying or who I’m dating. I don’t want my parents starting my morning off with a binder full of strangers I’m expected to choose someone out of to be with for the rest of my life.” Wooseok takes one step toward Seungwoo, and there’s a tug to his tone that almost sounds pleading, desperate. “Please play along. Just for a little while longer.” 

“That’s—” _Ridiculous_. His family will kill him. _Wooseok_’s family will kill him. There’s way too much at stake and Seungwoo knows it doesn’t have to be him. There are plenty of other people in the palace that would be willing to play the role of temporary partner to keep the media, the insistent elders at bay. It doesn’t have to be Seungwoo. “Wooseok—”

He hates how hard it is saying no to Wooseok, especially when he’s looking at Seungwoo as though this is where the road might end if he doesn’t yield. 

His life has been linked to Wooseok’s since the second Seungwoo was born, the thread fortified when Wooseok took his first step, bore the title of first son—_Crown Prince._

In all of their years together, Seungwoo can count the number of personal requests Wooseok has made on two hands. If Wooseok’s asking with this much fervor, Seungwoo’s inclined to cave. 

This is dangerous for more than one reason, but maybe Wooseok’s right. The nation doesn’t need a loveless marriage to thrive. It doesn’t need the camera’s eyes in places where it doesn’t belong. He has a stupid soft spot for Wooseok, but Seungwoo can empathize with where he’s coming from objectively, too; he wants Wooseok to be the king he’s most confident in being. 

“Crown Prince!” Yohan calls from the distance, his voice getting louder by the second. “Wooseok hyung? I mean, Crown Prince! Where are you? Hello?” 

“Please, hyung,” Wooseok echoes.

Seungwoo swallows the lump in his throat. He clasps Wooseok’s hand tighter once, exhales sharply. He doesn’t know how to say _no_. “You’re driving me crazy. My parents will kill me. _Your_ parents will be furious.” 

“Just for a little while longer,” repeats Wooseok. “I’ll be in your care.” 

Before Seungwoo even has the chance to say yes or no, Wooseok wriggles free from his grip and jogs toward the fountain positioned at the edge of the palace’s posterior, right as Yohan emerges from the outdoor corridor. 

“Oh, thank god,” Seungwoo hears Yohan gasp out, and as he trails behind Wooseok, keeping a comfortable distance so as not to implicate himself, Yohan hisses, “You scared the royal shit out of me, Your _Highness_. Seriously, hide-and-seek has got to stop, hyung. Texting was supposed to replace the ancient rendezvous.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be calling me Crown Prince?” 

“Only when there are other bodyguards around to give me—oh, hi, Seungwoo hyung—” Yohan freezes. “_Oh_.” 

Wooseok raises a brow, trying, but clearly not hard enough, to keep the tiny smirk off of his lips. 

“Didn’t hear a thing,” Seungwoo says with a daunting smile. “Can you please escort the Crown Prince to his parents’ quarters?”

“Haha, _yessir_, sir.” 

“Oh, and Yohan—”

Yohan freezes, his hand hovering over Wooseok’s elbow, prepared to corral him down the hall to the core of the palace. “Yeah?” He shakes his head. “Yes?” 

“Please only refer to the Crown Prince by one of his two titles from now on.”

“Two?” Yohan furrows his brows. “Crown Prince and…?”

Seungwoo glances at Wooseok, catches the petulant roll of the eyes the younger boy throws his way. He does an exaggerated curtsy before taking one step forward to very dramatically flick Wooseok on the forehead. “His Royal Pain in the Ass.”

Yohan snickers and Wooseok, very gracefully, flicks Seungwoo off in kind.

“Will do, hyung,” Yohan says, saluting once. 

Wooseok doesn’t say anything after that, only lets Yohan drag him down the hall, turning his head over his shoulder to shoot one last _look_ at Seungwoo before the door starts to close behind him. Seungwoo manages an exasperated smile. 

And then the door thuds shut and it’s just Seungwoo. 

_I’ll be in your care._

Clamping his eyes shut, Seungwoo pinches the bridge of his nose—a futile attempt at curbing an incoming headache. This is a mess and he’s bound to regret whatever happens regardless of whether he says yes or no; regardless of whether he gets roped into it or manages to evade it. 

The crickets chirp loudly, as though reminding him it’s too late in the evening to have a mid-life crisis.

He’ll leave today’s problems for tomorrow’s Seungwoo to figure out. 

* * *

Tomorrow’s Seungwoo is abruptly jostled awake at a quarter to four in the morning. This isn’t entirely new; the royal guard is usually up before the rest of the world even turns over in their sleep. What’s new is that Seungwoo’s woken not by drilled-in circadian rhythm, but by a hand on his shoulders, squeezing a little too tight.

By instinct, he almost dives straight into the classic self-defense maneuver, but the hand shifts before the sluggishness of his body wears off. It moves to pinch his cheek. _Hard._

Seungwoo’s eyes fly open then and it’s with much futility that he blindly swats at the offender. 

“You’re not getting weaker, are you?” 

He’d recognize his oldest sister’s voice anywhere, and Seungwoo can only manage a groan in response. “You’re not supposed to be in here, noona,” he grumbles. “Why are you here? Isn’t the Grand Prince—”

“I have _permission_ to be here,” Sunhwa says primly, like she didn’t just bruise Seungwoo’s cheek without so much as batting an eye. “Your commander’s so hot. What’s his name again? Dongwook? You know if he’s single?”

“Noona,” Seungwoo exhales out. “Why are you here?”

“Oh, right.” Sunhwa sounds less than enthused to be talking about anything serious. She extends her arm to turn the lamp perched atop the bedside table on. Unsurprisingly, she’s already dressed, made-up, and looking her part as the Grand Prince’s chief attendant. “Dad wanted me to talk at you.”

“_At_ me?” he repeats. “Don’t you mean—”

“I know what I said.” Sunhwa looks from side to side, her gaze jumping from the door, to the window, (to the wall), and then back to Seungwoo. “Listen, I don’t care enough about your personal life—well, no, let me rephrase that. I care about your personal life, but I care about you as a person more, so I won’t pry. Just tell me you’re not doing anything stupid and I’ll have your back.” 

She knows. Of course she does. 

The entire palace knows, and Seungwoo’s surprised that Sunhwa is the first to confront him about it for real. Yohan’s excited congratulations and Wooseok’s desperate plea don’t count. Sunhwa’s the first one to push Seungwoo into a corner to ask him what’s _really_ going on, and he’d been prepared to piece together an explanation, an excuse, to the King and Queen Consort, to the commander of the guard, to his parents—but not to his own sister. 

“I’m not doing anything… _stupid_,” Seungwoo says, jaw tight. 

Sunhwa fixes a look at him, something akin to pity embedded in her features (but he might just be dodging her sisterly concern). “Let me rephrase that.” She reaches out to pat him lightly on the cheek, nothing malicious, almost a feeble attempt at snapping him back to reality. “Please don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“You lost Minkyu at Lotte World when he was ten,” Seungwoo replies, biting back a grin.

To Sunhwa’s credit, she appears deep in reflection before whacking Seungwoo upside the head. “You know what I mean, _brat_. And you’re supposed to call him the Grand Prince. He’s very fickle about that. Ugh, I already have my hands full with Minkyu. Seriously! I don’t know why they won’t swap me out for someone else who’s better equipped to tolerate his puberty. He’s so _sensitive_ these days. Boys have such ugly growing pains. You were just as bad, you know. Wooseok was an angel compared to his little brother. What was I even saying—_oh_.” It’s a wonder she hasn’t woken up the entire rest of the guards’ quarters with her nagging. “Anyway, just be careful.”

“I’ll be fine,” insists Seungwoo. He can see where Sunhwa’s concerns might lie, but there’s a part of him that’s still convinced that this—whatever _this_ is—is going to fade away in a matter of days. Wooseok will come to his senses or he’ll inevitably blurt out the truth to the King and Queen Consort, and that’ll be that. 

“I know. I _know_ you’ll be fine, but I don’t know if I like what your idea of _fine_ is,” Sunhwa says, her lips pursed into a frown. He really hates making his sisters worry, let alone his parents. “Your relationship with Wooseok is really special, really important, but please don’t do anything stupid. I’ll tell dad that you’re fine. I’ll _tell_ him to let you handle it. But you _have_ to handle it, Seungwoo.”

If this were his dad lecturing him, the conversation would have had more to do about honor, about reputation, legacy, and selfishness. His father’s since retired from his position as the former commander of the guards as of last year, but their family remains deeply embedded in the palace. His father as an advisor of the King, his mother as the Queen Consort’s chief attendant, Sunhwa as the Grand Prince’s, and Jiyoung as one of Wooseok’s aides. 

Seungwoo isn’t convinced that their father asked Sunhwa to speak to him; it’s likelier that _Sunhwa_ insisted while Jiyoung and their mother supported her from behind and did everything in their power to convince their father to keep his temper under wraps. 

He’s not particularly fond of making promises he can’t keep, but the way Sunhwa’s looking at him is enough indication that she has zero plans of leaving without some assurance, and maybe he owes her at least that much. Seungwoo runs a hand through his hair, swinging his legs over the side of the bed until he’s sitting knee-to-knee next to his sister. 

“Guard _your_ heart.” Sunhwa punches him on the shoulder gently. “You can do that, can’t you? All I want is for you to take care of Wooseok—do your job! But take care of yourself too.”

“I will,” Seungwoo says. 

“Promise me,” Sunhwa urges, holding up one hand, pinky finger outstretched. 

He can’t remember the last time he made a promise like this. Too many of his memories, trivial milestones, are inundated with _Wooseok_. Even now, all Seungwoo can think of is a promise made in the corner of Wooseok’s room when Seungwoo was ten, Wooseok eight; fingers linked, Seungwoo whispering, _I promise I won’t leave your side._

Seungwoo inhales sharply, the breath leaving him in ribbons. His gaze falls from the side of Sunhwa’s face to the floor beneath him. He wraps his pinky around his sister’s, pressing his thumb to hers. It’s hard to remember what the context of his childhood promise to Wooseok was. 

“Promise me.”

Maybe it doesn’t matter much. Context all seems to blur when it comes to Wooseok. Seungwoo’s never needed much reason to promise the Crown Prince anything at all. 

“I promise.” 

* * *

For two whole days, no one says a thing. Seungwoo doesn’t even see Wooseok, which is technically out of the ordinary considering his official title is the _Crown Prince’s Royal Guard_. 

He tries to avoid dwelling on it. Public scandal usually whisks Wooseok away to his quarters until the paparazzi stop crowding the palace entrance. The King and Queen take precautionary measures to make sure Wooseok isn’t cornered into another bad soundbite. The media has always been relentless with Wooseok, but that’s out of Seungwoo’s control, entirely beyond his purview. 

While no one’s really said anything, he can tell there are people watching him with curious eyes. He’s good at ignoring the attention, always has been. Most of the people that make up the palace bodyguards aren’t born into the role; Seungwoo isn’t so lucky. It’s all he knows, all he’s ever known, and the Han family is something of a presence when it comes to the King’s inner circle. 

This, however, is a different type of attention, and he’s not quite used to it.

“Man, the tabloids are going crazy,” Yohan murmurs. “Hyung, have you seen this stuff? They’re writing articles making all sorts of speculation about who you are. _Oooh_, mysterious! Who’s the heartthrob bodyguard the Crown Prince has eyes for since he was sixteen? More about Han Seungwoo! The apple of the Crown Prince’s eye!” 

Seungwoo raises a brow. “You know, it kind of seems like you’re enjoying this too much?”

Yohan clears his throat abruptly and with way too much purpose. “Haha, what? Just keeping up with current events!” He scans the room, as though making sure no wandering ears are eavesdropping, before dropping his voice to a whisper. “Are you really a former _jopok_? That’s like the legit OG gang gang stuff, right?” 

With a roll of his eyes, Seungwoo pushes Yohan’s face away. “Cut it out. None of that stuff is real.” He laughs in spite of what he’s said. “They’re just making up rumors to pass the time until the palace makes a statement. Don’t get too caught up in it.”

“Hey,” someone interrupts from behind Seungwoo, effectively forcing Yohan’s jaw to drop a comical degree. 

It’s none other than the _Commander_ of the palace guards, looking as serene as usual, hand falling on Seungwoo’s shoulder right as Seungwoo turns his head. Their eyes lock and Seungwoo moves to rise, to bend into a practiced bow, but Dongwook stops him with a nod of his head. 

Maybe if it’d been a few years ago, Seungwoo might have trembled. Dongwook has an aura about him that is easily misinterpreted as terrifying, but he’s not as hardheaded or traditional as prior commanders have been. 

“Good morning,” Seungwoo greets. 

“Morning,” Yohan whispers, belatedly remembering to shut his mouth. 

“Just dropping by to deliver a message. Sorry to interrupt,” Dongwook apologizes. He squeezes Seungwoo’s shoulder and he recognizes it as an attempt at comfort. “Your presence is requested by the Queen. She’s in the library.”

Seungwoo stiffens at the thought. “Thank you.” He hesitates. “Do you happen to know if it’s just me?” He wonders if he’s supposed to be expecting Wooseok to be there, if he’s even allowed to hope. They haven’t talked since the day the press conference first went live—no time to coordinate any details, to facilitate how Wooseok’s brilliant plan is supposed to go. 

“Not sure,” Dongwook says. “The Crown Prince’s attendants did seem to be scurrying around this morning, so I presume he’ll be there. The King is ill. I’m not sure he’ll be able to attend, which I hope you’re not too devastated about.” The wry smile on his lips almost placates Seungwoo.

“I’ll try to curb my disappointment. Thank you for delivering the message.”

“Good luck.” After a moment, Dongwook pats Yohan on the shoulder on his way out. 

“I’m never washing my shoulder ever again,” Yohan announces when the door closes behind Dongwook.

Seungwoo shakes his head, the laugh he wants to emit twisting at the base of his throat. He leans in conspiratorially and whispers instead, “One time, he gave me a _hug_.” Maybe he’s distracting himself from the way his stomach is doing cartwheels as he makes his way toward the exit. Yohan’s envious gasp does the trick for now. 

* * *

“Come in, Seungwoo,” the Queen says. She’s seated at the King’s desk, a mahogany table that seems to stretch from one end of the siloed space of the library to the other. It’s an unconventional place to have an official space, but the King’s always been fond of the palace’s library. He and Wooseok have that in common, always seeking respite among old books that hold too many secrets. 

Most guards are referred to by their last name and official title, but outside of prying eyes, the Queen frequently lapses into treating Seungwoo like a familiar face, a member of her precious family.

“Good morning,” Seungwoo greets, body folding automatically into a practiced bow. “I apologize for being late.”

“_I’m_ sorry for the trouble,” the Queen says with a shake of her head. Her gaze rakes across the room, landing on a lone figure Seungwoo hadn’t noticed who is idly perusing a stack of books left unsorted on an otherwise immaculately organized bookshelf. _Wooseok_. “You must be just as caught off-guard by Wooseok’s sudden announcement.” 

Wooseok’s shoulders tense but he doesn’t turn around, focusing instead on a book on _sumukhwa_. He’s so obviously miffed that Seungwoo almost laughs. 

“I was,” Seungwoo admits, “but I understand he was in a difficult position.” 

“Wooseok? Don’t you have something to say?” For a woman of her age, she is exceptionally poised, every movement she makes outlined with an extra layer of grace. Her expression is placid, patient, but sternly _expectant_ as Wooseok slowly turns his body, the book now wedged between his arm and his side. “Well?”

“I’m sorry,” Wooseok apologizes, and at first, Seungwoo isn’t sure if it’s to him or to Wooseok’s mother. “I apologize for telling the world our secret without your permission.” 

Seungwoo’s surprised at his own poise when he musters up a faint smile. “I forgive you,” he says, his words unnecessarily formal—to suit the audience. Between just the two of them, he’d probably have reached across to pinch Wooseok’s cheek. 

This Wooseok isn’t Seungwoo’s Wooseok though; this Wooseok is the _Crown Prince_. 

“And?” the Queen prods.

Wooseok frowns. “I’m sorry for keeping a secret from you and father as well,” he says, gaze stubbornly fixed on his mother’s face. “I should know better than to spring surprises on you at my age.” 

Silence sits thick in the air for too long. Seungwoo tries not to keep count of the passing seconds. 

“Honestly,” the Queen sighs out, her expression relaxing too quickly, shoulders almost sagging. The royal air to her voice dissipates and now, she just sounds like any other exhausted mother. “You’ll be the death of me, Kim Wooseok. What were you thinking? In front of an audience as public as that? I don’t know who I feel sorrier for—the nice ambassador’s daughter we had a meeting set up with or _Seungwoo_.” She shakes her head, arms crossed against her chest. “I swear, your recklessness only rivals your father’s. Seungwoo, are you really okay? If you have any complaints, air them now. I just _cannot_ believe Wooseok dragged you into this!”

“I didn’t—” Wooseok cuts himself off, biting his lower lip. He swallows thickly, like he’s trying to keep himself from saying anything more than absolutely necessary. “It was selfish of me, I know, but if I didn’t say it then, then when?” 

Wooseok’s mother lets out another heavy exhale before gesturing to the two chairs propped up opposite her. “Take a seat. Let’s talk this through.” Her eyes flit from Seungwoo, as he occupies the seat closest to him, to Wooseok, who hovers for a bit before seating himself, entirely reluctant. “I haven’t really spoken with either of you since the press conference, so now’s the time to explain yourselves. Tell me everything so I know what to tell your father—the _King_. When did this start?” 

Seungwoo takes a peek at the way Wooseok’s hand is curled over his knee, fingers trembling ever so slightly. He suppresses a sigh of his own, mostly stemming from fond exasperation, before reaching across as discreetly as possible to clasp Wooseok’s hand in his. He gives him one encouraging squeeze, and he wants to commend the younger boy for disguising how startled he is by Seungwoo’s touch.

“I’ve liked him since I was sixteen,” Wooseok says, tone level. The omission almost catches Seungwoo off-guard with how genuine Wooseok sounds. He must have practiced, must have peered into a mirror feigning affection. What a strange thought. It leaves Seungwoo’s stomach churning. “I—” He locks eyes with his mother, and in this moment, Seungwoo can see the resemblance. They’re two sides of the same coin. “I was the one who confessed to him. In March. After Minkyu’s birthday. I don’t know. It just _happened_. Seungwoo hyung was hesitant, but I asked him to give me a chance. I told him it’d be okay and then the press conference happened, and…”

“Now it’s not okay,” Wooseok’s mother finishes. There’s a small smile on her lips despite the situation. She’s always been remarkably empathetic—her epithet since even before she bore the crown sings songs of her heart of gold. “That’s always the case, isn’t it? And now you’ve dragged your poor, favorite hyung into the mess.”

“I just need some time,” Wooseok cuts in. It’s the same thing he told Seungwoo a few days ago, and his gaze carries the same restrained desperation. “We’re not ready for marriage, but I just need time. I’ll get my affairs in order, I’ll be ready for the throne if I have to be, and I won’t get distracted—I _won’t_ be on my own. Hyung will be right beside me and you trust him not to let me wander, don’t you?” He turns to look at Seungwoo, as though seeking _some_ sort of reaction. 

_Ah_. So this is what Wooseok’s master plan was. 

Seungwoo’s only spectating at this point, but he’s starting to piece together what’s happening in Wooseok’s mind. He knows the younger boy has no interest in getting married to a diplomatic stranger; he knows that if Wooseok could choose, he might not take the throne at all. It’s true what he says: he just needs time to prove that the steadfast traditions the country’s been following blindly are ripe for change. He just needs _time_ to prove that he can be a capable leader without following history’s play-by-play.

And there’s no one else in this palace that Wooseok’s parents would trust more to supervise a hardheaded prince than Han Seungwoo, who’s been doing precisely that job since he was eighteen. But it’s not enough for Seungwoo to _just_ be his babysitter to free Wooseok from traditional shackles. He has to be something more, and the something more is this. 

If Seungwoo is _something more_ to Wooseok and the entire country knows it, then the King and Queen can’t force him to meet potential brides, potential suitors; the media can’t force him to figure out new ways to dodge questions about which mystery person is occupying his heart. 

Wooseok’s mother doesn’t seem at all concerned with the fact that her eldest son is in love with his bodyguard. She doesn’t seem to be taken aback, doesn’t appear to mind any of that, in substance, at all. Still, there’s a furrow between her brows, a glimmer of grief flickering in and out of her eyes. 

“Your father is ill.” 

Wooseok’s jaw tightens immediately and Seungwoo grasps his hand tighter again out of instinct. There’d been rumors flitting about regarding the King’s declining health, but it’s the first time Seungwoo’s been made to confront the gravity of the truth. 

“I know,” comes the slow response. “I know he’s sick. I just need a little more time. I don’t want to be pigeonholed into a marriage with a complete stranger when I already have—” He trails off, looking away from Seungwoo, exhaling sharply. “I won’t waste your time. Please trust me.” 

Sometimes, the Queen reminds Seungwoo of his oldest sister. She and Sunhwa both carry a perpetual warmth in their eyes, something easily misinterpreted as an omnipresent concern, a sort of persistent heartache for the world around them. He figures Sunhwa gets it from their mother, and their mother, who’s been glued to the Queen’s side for as long as Seungwoo can remember—maybe she gets it from Wooseok’s mother. Maybe it’s the other way around. 

“Wooseok,” his mother says softly. “You know we have your best interests in mind, right?”

“I know.” Wooseok smiles, and though it’s faint, it’s a reflection of the person before him. “Just this once, let me be selfish.” 

“I’ll watch over him,” Seungwoo promises, the words slipping past his lips before he even has the chance to process them. He means them, though. Always has. “I trust Wooseok.” 

“Wooseok,” the Queen repeats, and for the first time in a long time, Seungwoo can see her age in her features, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes profound as sunlight filters in from behind her. “Will this make you happy?”

Another pin-drop silence. Wooseok frees his hand from Seungwoo’s, his gaze rising from the unsealed letter on the desk before his mother to a spot on the window behind her. “Yes,” he says, and his tone seems stifled, as though wading through an ocean of hesitation. Wooseok smiles again but it’s a practiced one that Seungwoo recognizes too well—pieced together by deliberation, not genuineness. “Yes, it will.” 

Wooseok’s hands aren’t shaking anymore. They’re clenched into fists. 

“Alright.” The frown on her lips rises into a neutral line. “Please practice rationality in answering any questions you receive from outside parties over the next few weeks,” Wooseok’s mother says. She looks at Seungwoo and then at Wooseok, her gaze lingering on her son, searching for something that Wooseok refuses to give. “You’re both dismissed.”

The atmosphere feels heavy, thick with something untouched, as Seungwoo and Wooseok make their leave. He waits until they’re outside of the library, the hallway empty save for a scattered few skittish maids scurrying to their next assignment. 

“Your dad’s really sick?” Seungwoo asks first.

Wooseok rubs at his eyes. “Yeah,” he mutters. “It’s why they’re pushing me to get married. It’s why they’re pushing me to get ready for the throne.” 

“And?” 

Seungwoo grabs the crook of Wooseok’s elbow to stop him from stumbling over a loose tile. “And what?” Wooseok peers at Seungwoo expectantly, as though he isn’t sure what the question’s asking—isn’t familiar with being _asked_ anything beyond the foundation of the issue, the bare minimum. He wriggles free from Seungwoo’s grasp and Seungwoo tries not to dwell on it.

“You don’t want to get married at all? Your plans for the throne are different? What’s going on in your mind, Wooseok? I want to help you, but you have to walk me through it.” 

The tiniest smile sneaks across Wooseok’s face. “Leave it to you to ask the hard questions, hyung” he says, rolling his eyes. “My plans _are_ different. I’ve put a lot of thought into this, I promise, but I don’t know if it’ll work out the way it needs to. I just need you to trust me.”

“Really inspiring a lot of confidence here.”

“The person I’d want to rule with doesn’t want anything to do with the throne,” Wooseok confesses, ignoring Seungwoo’s tease with a practiced ease. He pats his pockets lightly before procuring a familiar pair of glasses that soon finds its way onto Wooseok’s face. “I’d rather rule alone than with anyone else.”

It’s Seungwoo’s first time hearing of someone who’s caught Wooseok’s eye. He wants to pry, but there’s always been a line between them, no matter how insistently Wooseok attempted to blur it in the past. At the end of the day, one of them is the future of Korea; the other is nothing more than a shield. Seungwoo doesn’t need to know who Wooseok’s heart has been broken by. He’s not sure if he trusts himself to know either. 

“Would that be selfish of you?” he asks instead.

“What do you think, hyung?” 

When Wooseok was twelve, the media turned on him for the first time, misconstruing a situation where he’d wrestled free from his aide’s supervision to play with a group of children he’d never met on a playground down the street. At some point, one of the kids pushed him. There’s a misunderstanding after that, a question of _who pushed who_ even though the people involved—children, parents—told the reporters all they knew of the truth, that the _Crown Prince did nothing wrong_. It was hard to find an article title that didn’t criticize him for _not knowing his place_, for _meddling_ with the regular citizens and _terrorizing_ them for the next few weeks. 

Maybe it was then that he started bottling things up, lips always pressed a little tighter. It’s hard to know what Wooseok’s thinking—harder now than it was back then, than it was yesterday. 

Sometimes, though, Seungwoo thinks that all Wooseok needs, _wants_, is for someone to ask.

“What do you think?” repeats Wooseok. He stops walking, turning instead to look at Seungwoo intently. “My parents _learned_ to love each other. My dad had to figure out how to balance responsibility with family because he didn’t want both at first. Sometimes, I feel like he’s still figuring that out.” Wooseok faces forward again, takes one shaky step. He speaks coolly, but his shoulders are tense, tight with regret. “Do you think it’s selfish that I don’t want that?” 

Seungwoo doesn’t say anything. He _can’_t say anything. 

“You don’t have to answer.”

“Wooseok—”

“But if at any point you do,” Wooseok continues, his back growing smaller with each step he takes further and further away. “If someday you decide I _am_ being selfish, then _tell me_. I’ll stop.” 

“_Wooseok_,” Seungwoo calls out before he misses the opportunity. He waits until Wooseok’s steps slow to a tentative stop, the words he’d wanted to say suspended in Seungwoo’s throat. It’s strange how everything Wooseok tells him feels like a secret Seungwoo wants to carry to the grave. 

What Seungwoo initially thought would be a small fire tamed quickly is much larger than anticipated. It might be the years he’s spent navigating the wildfires that seem to follow Wooseok in silence, but he’s hardly as surprised as he wishes he was. 

It’s not like he can back out now. Not when his heart’s always been soft. 

(Not when his heart’s always been especially pliant for Wooseok.) 

“What?” Wooseok prods, unmoving. 

Seungwoo shoves his hands into his pockets, wonders distantly when the little boy who used to chase his coattails became the outline of a _king_. “Nothing,” he says, the smile on his lips too easy in Wooseok’s company. And then, when he sees the wound-up energy leave Wooseok’s body in handfuls, “I’ll be in your care.” 

* * *

There’s still a good deal of media damage control to be done so Wooseok ducks out of classes for a few more days and spends most of his time isolated in his quarters. If Wooseok’s at the palace, then that means Seungwoo doesn’t particularly have anywhere to go. He’s a follower, not a leader, and if Wooseok isn’t moving, then neither is he. 

It’s been a couple of days since their meeting with the Queen and nothing daunting has flown onto Seungwoo’s plate. Most people are too afraid to ask the questions he doesn’t have answers for.

It turns out to be an easier job than anticipated, being the Crown Prince’s not-so-secret boyfriend.

Minus, of course, one _persistent_ roadblock. 

“Are you _really_ dating Wooseok hyung?” Minkyu demands, eyes narrowing suspiciously. The Grand Prince stalks after Seungwoo like a determined puppy, weaving from side-to-side to pepper him with questions. “What’s his favorite color?”

“He likes black and white.”

“What’s his favorite sport?” Minkyu nearly runs into one of the pillars of the external corridor. Seungwoo just barely manages to yank him out of the path of inevitable danger. 

“He doesn’t care about sports,” Seungwoo sighs out. “He likes video games.”

Minkyu frowns. “I don’t get it,” he says. “Why wouldn’t hyung have told me that he was dating you? He never tells me anything these days. What gives?” 

Seungwoo can see what Sunhwa means when she says Minkyu’s been _difficult_ lately. He seems to be juggling a lot of his own internal demons and Seungwoo isn’t sure if he’s the right person to be counseling him on his relationship with his brother. 

“I’m sure he meant to tell you,” Seungwoo assures Minkyu. “He’s been busy. I doubt he was trying to keep it from you.”

“Why didn’t _you_ tell me, hyung?” asks Minkyu. “Why was it such a big secret anyway?” 

_Well_, Seungwoo doesn’t say aloud, _because I didn’t even know the secret until a week ago._

“I’m not royalty, Minkyu,” Seungwoo says with a half-hearted smile. “I don’t know if the entire country _or_ your parents really imagined your brother dating one of his bodyguards.” 

“I mean, that’s true… I think my first guess would have been Jinhyuk hyung.” Minkyu crosses his arms and Seungwoo slows his pace so Minkyu doesn’t have to sprint to catch up. 

Jinhyuk’s one of Wooseok’s few friends and has been abroad since the beginning of the year. At Minkyu’s comment, Seungwoo can’t help but think he might be right. Jinhyuk would have been a much more convincing straw-person. He isn’t sure why Wooseok settled on Seungwoo instead. 

Maybe Jinhyuk’s the one Wooseok _wanted_ to rule with—the one that broke Wooseok’s heart, intentionally or not. 

His chest feels tight, stomach uneasy. Seungwoo shakes the thought out of his mind.

“But who cares if you’re a bodyguard? You’re important to hyung.” 

Seungwoo hums. “So are you.”

“I _know_ that,” huffs Minkyu. He seems to realize belatedly that his bitterness is a little misguided because his expression softens then, warping from irritation to disappointment. “He keeps so many secrets…”

“Who does? Your brother?”

Minkyu nods, sighing softly, brows still furrowed. “Yeah. You know what’s annoying? Every mistake I make ends up being his fault one way or another. He never gets mad at me though. That’s so stupid. People can be _so_ dumb and mean. He never gets mad at me and when I tell him he _should_, he just laughs and says it’s not my fault.” The frustration lingering in Minkyu’s tone is something Seungwoo feels familiar with. “Seungwoo hyung, you’re his boyfriend. Can’t you help him?” 

_Boyfriend_. Seungwoo swallows the lump in his throat. “Help him?” 

“I don’t know…” Minkyu trails off. “I don’t want him to keep locking himself away. I want him to talk to somebody. Maybe just… open up to at least one person? It’d be _really_ nice for him to yell as loud as he can or something!” 

Seungwoo’s about to ask what, exactly, Minkyu’s so worried about in particular, when the doors at the end of the corridor fly open and three guards—including Yohan—jump out. Minkyu reacts immediately by hiding behind Seungwoo, hands clinging to his shoulders.

“I don’t want to go to English class!” Minkyu groans, using Seungwoo as a human shield to evade the guards’ desperate attempts at fetching the Grand Prince, probably under Sunhwa’s orders. “I live in Korea! Why do I have to learn English? Tell _them_ to learn Korean!” 

“He’s got a point,” Seungyoun, one of the guards, mutters to the other, Hangyul. 

“You’re already late, Grand Prince!” Yohan all but yelps, looking especially panicked today. “The Queen is going to be so pissed—er, _angry_—if you miss another class without a valid reason!” 

“I _have_ a valid reason. I’m not the Crown Pr—”

“Why is it so loud?” A familiar voice cuts through the chaos, immediately silencing everyone. Seungwoo doesn’t have to turn to know that it’s Wooseok, though he does so anyway to try to gauge why there’s such an exhausted pull to his voice. “The King’s quarters are close by. He’s trying to rest. This isn’t really the time or the place for an argument.” 

Minkyu’s shoulders slump immediately and he loosens his grip on Seungwoo before letting go altogether. The brief alarm in his face shifts into petulance, his gaze flickering from Wooseok to the floor. Sullenly, he kicks at the ground once before walking toward the direction Yohan and the others entered from. 

“I guess I’ll go to English class,” mutters Minkyu, to no one in particular. “But I’m going because _I_ want to, not because Sunhwa noona wants me to.” 

Wooseok’s fatigue seems to grow tenfold as he watches Minkyu’s figure retreat, the guards trailing after the youngest prince dutifully. He almost looks as though he wants to say something, wants to keep Minkyu for another minute or two, but Wooseok’s mouth stays shut. 

He takes steps forward, trailing after Minkyu, until he’s a few centimeters in front of Seungwoo. And then Wooseok stops. 

“Min—” Wooseok starts to say. He cuts himself off, inhaling too sharply, jaw clenching as the doors close resolutely until it’s just him and Seungwoo left in the corridor. He shakes his head, letting his hands drop to his sides, one of them curling into a fist. It takes a few seconds of silence, of contemplation, before he turns to face Seungwoo. 

“Minkyu’s been worried about you,” Seungwoo says, lips pressed into a small smile. “He’s all grown up, isn’t he?” 

“I know,” replies Wooseok. From this close, the dark circles under his eyes look especially severe. A shudder of a breath leaves Wooseok’s body, the ghost of a sigh. “It’s hard talking to him these days.” 

“Is it? Are you making it hard?” 

Wooseok frowns. “You’re never on my side, are you?” he asks, and though the words are sharp, Seungwoo’s known Wooseok long enough to catch the whine. 

“I’m _only_ on your side,” Seungwoo corrects, moving until he’s standing shoulder-to-shoulder next to Wooseok. “If it was you against the entire world, I’d still choose you.” He pokes Wooseok’s cheek, relishing the way the younger scowls at him.

“Hopefully it won’t ever come to that.” Wooseok’s chest rises, falls as he lets out another small breath. “I’m being unfair to him but there are things he shouldn’t have to know or worry about. Not yet, at least. I just want him to be happy right now.”

“Does he have reasons not to be?” 

“That’s not what I mean. He just shouldn’t have to worry about my problems.” Wooseok rubs at his eye, pushing his glasses up. “Anyway, I’m going back to class next week. You’ll probably get bombarded with questions. They’re going to treat you how they treat me, not how they treat a bodyguard.” The way he says it sounds less like an announcement and more like an apology. “I thought about it, and I really wasn’t thinking straight when I dragged you into this. I’ll have to come clean to the entire country someday. Maybe they’ll hate me forever. Maybe my parents won’t forgive me. I really was being selfish when I made you help me.”

It’s a little late for that. 

Seungwoo’s been spending a few sleepless nights wondering what, exactly, this is going to entail. He isn’t sure if he’s ready to make any huge sacrifices; isn’t even sure how he’ll feel about it come tomorrow, because the heart really is stupidly fickle.

But in this moment, right this second, all Seungwoo can focus on is the tiny frown Wooseok’s wearing, the split-second trepidation that flashes through his features, as though he’s stumbling through every variation of an apology in his head. 

“It’s okay,” Seungwoo says, because in this moment, right this second, he means it. _Wants_ to mean it if only to get Wooseok to rest easy. “We’ll take it step-by-step.” He brushes a piece of lint off of Wooseok’s shoulder. “Let’s just focus on today for now.” 

That seems to do it. Wooseok visibly relaxes before nodding, almost to himself. “You’re right.” He bites his lower lip before pursing his mouth into a line. “I’ll—”

“—be in my care?” 

“No.” Wooseok shakes his head, and he does it again—looks so _sure_ of himself out of the blue that for a second, Seungwoo has to remind himself that the person in front of him is the same boy who asked for drugstore postcards the one week Seungwoo went to Busan ten years ago; the same boy whose eyes lit up at the sight of seven pieces of cardboard depicting Busan’s best tourist spots delivered all at once, detailing Seungwoo’s humdrum days away from the palace. When Wooseok smiles like this, he doesn’t look aimless, doesn’t look lost. “That’s not it.” 

He looks like a prince. He _looks_ like a _king_.

Seungwoo tilts his head to the side. “You’re full of surprises today.” 

“I’ll look out for you, hyung,” says Wooseok, neutrality finding him once more. Seungwoo wants to hold him by the shoulders and tell him to stop, to take off the mask he keeps reaching for. “Thanks.” 

“Will I see your face before then? You’ve been awfully good at hiding these days,” Seungwoo says.

Wooseok nearly cracks, the laugh he almost lets slip replaced with the curve of his eyes, tight lips. “Just say you miss me,” he says. “I’ve been busy. Try to find a hobby, hyung. Can’t be my babysitter forever.” 

* * *

He’s not particularly fond of cameras. 

It’s the first day since the bomb dropped that Wooseok is leaving palace grounds. He has classes to attend, and while being royalty is usually enough to excuse a couple of absences, Wooseok’s too stubborn and too proud to let the media think they’ve intimidated him. He knows Wooseok likes his classes. Royalty isn’t allowed to leave the palace without supervision; going to class is the closest thing Wooseok gets to freedom. 

“Is this supposed to be fun?” Seungwoo whispers. He’s usually stationed a few feet—or a _lot of_ feet—behind. Especially with Minkyu and Wooseok, the guards are encouraged to give them some space, to let them live out momentary fantasies of being normal people. Seungwoo, however, is no longer just the Crown Prince’s guard, but the Crown Prince’s enigmatic _boyfriend_ slash imperial guard. “I’m waiting and it’s not fun yet.”

“Suck it up,” Wooseok whispers back, the smile on his lips so carefully constructed that Seungwoo really has to hand it to him. He knocks his hand against Seungwoo’s before gracefully lacing their fingers together. The camera flashes go crazy. “Don’t answer any questions if you can’t. I just have to get to my actual classroom, and we should be fine. You don’t have to follow me in. Don’t let them swarm you after I leave.” 

The swarm of reporters trailing after them is larger than anticipated, and Seungwoo unwittingly presses himself closer to Wooseok’s side as a precautionary measure. A handful of Wooseok’s other guards flank them, but Seungwoo feels particularly uneasy when he’s the one being contained instead of the one doing the containing. 

“I’m sorry,” Wooseok announces to the crowd of cameras and voice recorders. “We won’t have much time for questions today. It’d be rude to my peers if I caused a commotion on campus.” He offers his television smile, doesn’t even flinch when cameras start flashing again. “We’ll be finding a time in the future to formally address any questions I’m sure you have, but until then, please respect the other students here. Please also remember that my boyfriend is still my bodyguard and has his own responsibilities entirely separate from our personal affairs.”

Wooseok tugs Seungwoo’s hand gently, turning to look up at him, his professional smile still in place. He leans in, leans up, and Seungwoo momentarily forgets to breathe.

“_Play along_,” Wooseok whispers, tiptoeing so their cheeks just barely brush, Wooseok’s words tickling Seungwoo’s ears while the crowd’s re-calibrating. For a second, Seungwoo’s heart stops beating and then starts racing. He isn’t sure what he was expecting. “I’ll see you later?” Wooseok asks at a normal volume as he pulls away. Their hands fall apart and Wooseok waves to Seungwoo and then bows to the reporters. “Thank you for your hard work. I’ll be taking my leave.” 

And then he’s gone, just like that, leaving Seungwoo dazed and confused and entirely defenseless to the vultures circling him. 

“Hyung,” Seungyoun hisses from beside him, snapping Seungwoo out of his momentary reverie before the reporters have the chance to dispose of their morals for the sake of a story. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

For a second, Seungwoo feels caught in flux. He wants to point out that he _isn’t_ the one that needs protection, gaze hopping from Seungyoun’s face to the door Wooseok disappeared through, but then a camera shifts in his periphery and Seungwoo realizes that things _have_ changed monumentally since the last time he was standing in this same exact place. 

“Are you _my_ bodyguard?” Seungwoo jokes as he trails after Seungyoun and the rest of Wooseok’s entourage. They have positions to assume and while Seungwoo’s caught up in media frenzy, he’ll be doubling up with Seungyoun or Yohan. “You should get paid overtime for this.”

“Hilarious,” Seungyoun says with a roll of his eyes. “It’s all a part of the job description, hyung. Protect the Crown Prince and the things he cherishes. You’re a _thing he cherishes_ now.” 

“That’s not what the job description says.”

“Might as well with the way he looks at you,” teases Seungyoun. “I don’t know why I didn’t notice before. Now that I know, it’s so obvious.” Before Seungwoo has the chance to ask, Seungyoun let outs a long sigh, scanning the greenery before him. “Man, you ever wish you could go back in time and live a normal life? Go to university like a normal kid?”

“I’ve never really thought about it,” Seungwoo says with an honest shrug. And he hasn’t. He’s had bouts of childhood rebellion, fighting against what his parents told him to do for the sake of lashing out. _Puberty_, Sunhwa would say with a turn of her nose. _You had the ugliest growing pains_. He’s never really considered any of his complaints coming to fruition though. “My sister went to university.” 

“Sunhwa noonim?” Yohan clarifies from behind them as he catches up. “Really? I thought most of the royal family’s guard that are like—” Yohan flounders, gesturing vaguely with his hand. “You know… _born into it_… I thought they gave up university. Sold their souls to the royal family. Live and die for them!” 

“You think this is a cult or something?” Seungyoun asks as flatly as possible before devolving into a fit of snickers. 

“It’s really not as intense as you think it is,” replies Seungwoo, the smallest, fondest smile on his lips. “My sister wanted a normal life. She said she could balance going to a university like her friends and taking care of Minkyu, so my parents let her try.”

“Did it work out for her?” asks Yohan. 

“She graduated,” Seungwoo answers, though he isn’t really sure if that’s enough of an answer. “During her last year, she lost sight of Minkyu at Lotte World and spent hours and hours crying when they finally found him. And then the next day she came back to the palace and told my parents that she was done experimenting, that she wanted to stay where she started.” 

Yohan’s brows furrow. “Because she lost the Grand Prince at a giant theme park?” 

“Yeah.” The grin on Seungwoo’s face comes easily, a tiny laugh following. “She said it was the first time she realized she cares about Minkyu as much as she cares about herself. Said she didn’t trust anyone else to look after him.” 

“And you feel the same way about Wooseok?” Seungyoun presses, the smile on his lips cat-like.

He wants to say _yes_, but the word catches in his throat. 

Of course he does. Of _course_ he cares about Wooseok as much as he cares about himself—if not more, but there’s something different about the way Seungwoo feels when Wooseok’s next to him. It transcends any fierce sisterly protectiveness Sunhwa has, blurs the lines between obligation and something more. 

“Something like that,” Seungwoo manages after a few seconds pass. He tears his gaze away from Yohan’s curious face, away from the knowing look on Seungyoun’s, focuses on the window he knows Wooseok’s probably sitting by. Something thumps traitorously where his heart should be still. “Yeah.” 

* * *

**Choi Byungchan**

CONGRATS HYUNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can’t believe u finally asked him out!!!!!!!  
it’s been a long time coming!!!!!! meant to text earlier but figured u were  
busy dodging palace politics and all of that fun stuff hehe i don’t miss it  
miss u tho and everyone else :D congrats again to the happy couple :D  
proud of u for finding ur one (1) brain cell and ur two (2) balls u dumbass

**Han Seungwoo**

what do you mean by long time coming?? 

**Choi Byungchan**

o  
nvm i rescind my congratulations ig ur still a dumbass

**Han Seungwoo**

???

**Choi Byungchan**

wow one might say the biggest dumbass… call u soon 

* * *

Before the arrangement began, Seungwoo spent nearly every waking hour in Wooseok’s vicinity. He still does because his job comes first, but there’s been a shift in the dynamic. 

Minkyu’s right. Wooseok does keep a lot of secrets. Once, Seungwoo prided himself on knowing enough to keep Wooseok afloat; now, in the span of a few days, in the span of a week, he’s struggling to keep his own head above the waters because it’s weird. It’s like Wooseok’s trying to shut him out too.

“Tomorrow, we should go on a date,” Wooseok announces, not even looking up from his iPad. He’s scrolling through a never-ending document written in English that Seungwoo couldn’t even begin to make any sense of. “Feed the media.” 

“A date?” Seungwoo echoes. He sinks back in his seat, fingers drumming atop his thigh. This is weird too—sitting in the backseat of a car with the flag of Korea pinned to the hood. He’s usually in the front, sometimes not even in the same car at all. This is _weird_, being so physically proximal but feeling an ocean away. “You can just tell me if you want to spend time with me, Wooseok. Hyung will always make time for you,” he says teasingly, voice lilting.

Wooseok rolls his eyes, the screen before him shuttering, dimming to black. He sets it aside, reaches up to pull the glasses from his face, rubbing at his eyes once. “I have a headache,” he says primly, but Seungwoo knows him too well to be offended. “I kind of want to take a walk.”

“Want me to ask the driver to pull over? You can walk. I’ll meet you at the palace.” Seungwoo grins, almost chuckling at his own joke.

“_Tomorrow_,” clarifies Wooseok with a pointed glare. “I want to check out an arcade or something. Play the crane game. Or… Jinhyuk said there’s a new exhibit at one of the museums that I might like.” 

“Jinhyuk?” 

Last he’d heard, Jinhyuk was out and about, exploring the grand world on his own. For an ambassador’s son, he’s always been remarkably vocal about how little he wants to be shackled to his father’s ankle. Still, if anyone’s got the capacity to be a future leader without following the textbook example, it’s Lee Jinhyuk. Byungchan once compared him to the sun, said he might even be brighter than the brightest star in the sky. 

“He’s back,” Wooseok explains, leaning his head back, eyes closing. “Two days ago. Flew in without telling anyone.”

“Sounds like Jinhyuk,” Seungwoo comments. He’s reminded of what Minkyu said earlier—how he would have expected Wooseok to be dating _Jinhyuk_ in secret. “He got tired of the world so quickly.”

“I think he’s worried,” Wooseok says. “I told him everything and he thinks I’m being stupid.”

Seungwoo looks at the side of Wooseok’s face, taking in how pale the younger man is these days, how exhausted, fatigued he seems to be—perpetually. He wants to reach out, brush his fingertip across Wooseok’s forehead to sweep aside his fringe, but the threads that are just barely keeping Seungwoo together hold him back, keep him rooted in place.

He wants to ask why Wooseok told Jinhyuk the truth when everyone else—even Minkyu—is being kept in the shadows. He wants to ask why Wooseok didn’t just pull Jinhyuk into the charade instead of Seungwoo. He wants to ask what there is to worry about aside from the obvious. 

“You should cut your hair,” he says instead, hand clenching into a fist, fist hiding in the pocket of his jacket. “Isn’t it hot?”

“You never ask the right questions,” Wooseok replies, the corners of his lips tugging faintly, a glimmer of bitterness dwelling where it shouldn’t belong. 

“What should I have asked?” ventures Seungwoo.

Wooseok hums, the smile fading until all that’s left is a neutral frown. “Don’t know,” he confesses, his eyes still closed. “I never know what I want.” 

* * *

If he could go back in time, Seungwoo would ask one question and one question only: _Why me?_

* * *

“What did you mean by a ‘long time coming’?” 

Seungwoo can _hear_ Byungchan’s offended scoff loud and clear from a thousand miles away. “Long time no talk to you too, hyung! Glad to hear you missed me as much as I missed you. I’m doing great, thanks for asking.” 

“You know I miss you,” Seungwoo says, muffling a laugh. 

Byungchan huffs, petulant as always. “You’re so annoying,” he complains, but his voice lacks any bite. There’s a rustling from the other end of the phone and idly, Seungwoo checks the time. It’s probably close to seven in the morning where Byungchan is. “So, what’s the deal? Heard from a little bird that you two aren’t actually dating?” 

Seungwoo freezes. “Who told you that?” 

“Jinhyuk hyung,” Byungchan says flatly. “Don’t worry. I can literally hear the gears in your head turning. Wooseok hyung already told Jinhyuk hyung that he was allowed to tell me. I’m something of a VIP ‘round these parts, you know?” 

Unwittingly, Seungwoo lets out a sigh of relief. It’s nice having someone who knows the truth around. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” He pauses. “You knew when you texted me?”

“After,” Byungchan says. “Now that I know, though, it makes a lot more sense why you were confused.”

“I’m still confused. Still waiting for you to explain.”

“What’s there to explain?” There’s a thud. Byungchan hisses. “My _foot_,” he groans. “God, anyway, what was I saying… oh, yeah. What’s there to explain? I thought you guys were dating for real.”

“Wooseok and me? Stop talking nonsense,” Seungwoo laughs out. “I’m not… He deserves better. He’s the Crown Prince, Byungchan. Not just a normal kid.”

“I mean, I guess?” Byungchan doesn’t sound convinced. Then again, Byungchan never sounds convinced. “It just makes sense. If you were going to end up with anyone for the long run, it’d be Wooseok hyung.”

It doesn’t make sense to Seungwoo. The divide between them is too vast, too great—and especially these days, when it gets harder by the second to get a gauge of what Wooseok’s thinking. He doesn’t say any of this out loud though. It’s enough that Seungwoo’s worrying about it; he doesn’t want to burden anyone else with his concerns. 

“I feel like he should have asked Jinhyuk,” Seungwoo says, eyes closing, one hand dragging down his face. He wants to ask if Byungchan knows anything; if he’s noticed anything, maybe a glimmer of something, one-sided, unrequited or not from Wooseok to Jinhyuk. It’s not his place though, and a part of Seungwoo doesn’t really want to know. “Wouldn’t that have been easier for him?”

Byungchan doesn’t answer immediately. “Have I not—” He cuts himself off abruptly, a nervous laugh following. “They aren’t like… _that_.”

“Neither are we?”

“Yeah, but…” Byungchan clears his throat. “Anyway, hyung. I actually have to get going. Text me if you need to talk about anything, but good luck! Get your head out of your ass and start thinking! Hehe, it’s so nice being oceans away and not having to worry about you kicking my butt.”

Seungwoo presses the back of his hand to his eyes and smiles. “You’re visiting in a month.”

“Oh.” Byungchan hiccups. “Don’t hold grudges, hyung. At your age, it’ll just lead to high blood pressure. Bye-bye! Miss you!” 

“Bye Byungchan,” Seungwoo sing-songs. “I’ll see you in a _month_.” 

“Euugh, you’re so scary,” Byungchan says with a shudder before hanging up. 

He can’t help but feel a little confused, more lost than he did twenty minutes ago, after the call ends. A part of him is worried that his actions around Wooseok have been misconstrued for something they’re not allowed to be. If Byungchan had a suspicion, then there’s no telling who else might have misunderstood. The greater part of him is tired. It’s hardly been a couple of weeks since the press conference first dropped and Seungwoo feels like he’s been in a long-distance relationship with someone he sees every day for the past lifetime. 

_It just makes sense,_ Byungchan chirps. 

Seungwoo squeezes his eyes shut tighter. 

Nothing makes sense these days. 

* * *

It’s terrible weather for a date. The skies are gray, and the morning began with his mother telling him that her knees were aching—a telltale sign that thunderstorms are due to roll in before the day expires. 

(His dad’s been avoiding him lately, hardly acknowledging him. Neither of them wants to talk about the elephant in the room and Seungwoo isn’t sure if he’ll ever be ready to. He supposes he takes after his dad in the worst ways too, and running away from difficult conversations, waiting for the situation to solve itself, is one of them.)

Wooseok doesn’t seem to care much though. He’s already awake and evidently wandering the palace grounds because it takes Seungwoo a solid half an hour to find the younger boy nestled in a crook of the library with the same iPad, his glasses sliding down his nose. 

“You’re going to ask me on a date and spend the whole day reading by yourself?” Seungwoo asks in lieu of a greeting. 

It’s almost endearing the way Wooseok flinches, clearly not expecting any visitors. 

“Oh,” Wooseok replies dully, looking up from the screen of his tablet to Seungwoo’s face. He’s always in the strangest places, dodging normal chairs and couches to occupy cramped corners of the palace. When Wooseok’s like this—curled up on the floor, surrounded by a swath of books and cushions stolen from nearby sofas—Seungwoo’s reminded of a cat. “I thought you forgot.”

“I thought _you_ forgot,” Seungwoo returns, tone entertained. “Aren’t you supposed to pick me up at my door with a bouquet of flowers? A box of chocolates?”

“Flowers? Chocolates?” Wooseok wrinkles his nose. “I’m playing hard-to-get,” he explains. He squirms, accepting the hand Seungwoo extends to him, allowing himself to be hoisted up until he’s standing on two feet. “And if it were a game, I would have won.” 

Seungwoo stifles a laugh. “It looks like it might rain. Still want to go on a walk?” 

Pensively, Wooseok peers out the window, squinting past the stained panels to make out the shade of the clouds. “I hate rain,” he murmurs, mostly to himself, before brushing himself off. “Let’s go. Who knows when I’ll have time to breathe again?” 

“You must be busy preparing for the upcoming trip. Excited?”

“Thrilled.” Wooseok is due to accompany his father to the United States. Diplomatic trips are hardly vacations, and the amount of preparation that Wooseok puts into _not_ making a fool of himself usually saps him of most of his energy leading up to the actual day of. “Just want to get it over with.” 

“America must be nice,” Seungwoo muses, a single breath leaving him, drawn-out. He turns on his heel when Wooseok seems just about ready to leave, taking extra care to keep his steps slow. It’s habit to walk in front of or behind Wooseok, but Seungwoo figures today, they should be shoulder-to-shoulder. 

Wooseok doesn’t respond immediately, his shoulders tight—the way they are when he’s thinking too much. “Your English is terrible,” he says, and Seungwoo can tell it’s not what he wanted to say.

“How much do you charge an hour for interpreting?” 

“It’s outside of your budget,” Wooseok replies, too coolly, too easily. 

Seungwoo makes an idle note to ask Byungchan to send him his English language class recordings. It really is sort of pitiful how little he knows. “Ah, you’re so cold.”

“Hard-to-get,” Wooseok corrects, the lilt to his words enough indication that he’s teasing. 

At some point, Wooseok finds a place to stash his tablet and the giant stack of books he’d plucked from various shelves throughout the library. They opt to bypass the garage and make the most of _walking_, because it’s the only thing Wooseok really wants to do today. The museum would be a positive, “But I can go with Jinhyuk too.” 

“I’ll take you,” Seungwoo says, and he feels a little childish for being so quick to respond. He doesn’t want to acknowledge he feels a little competitive, but it’s rare to have days like this when Wooseok’s allowed to leave palace grounds for recreational, personal reasons. Sure, he’s greedy—Seungwoo can’t help wanting to monopolize certain things, _people_, sometimes. “Might as well make the most of today.”

By the time they make it to the inner palace gates, Wooseok seems to hesitate, gaze flickering forward and backward, at the greenery beyond the premises and back at the palace. 

“Forget something?” Seungwoo asks. “I brought an umbrella, if you’re worried about the rain,” he adds.

“It’s so weird seeing you in casual clothes,” Wooseok says, ignoring Seungwoo’s question. “Too used to seeing all of the guards in suits.”

“Today’s my day off,” Seungwoo replies with an easy smile, a contrast to the practiced neutrality Wooseok’s wearing like a second skin. “Specially requested for my special person.” 

Wooseok stares at him blankly, the way he often does when he has no words. “No one’s listening, hyung,” he says after a moment passes, expression fixed into a feigned grimace. “You don’t have to be so cheesy.” 

“Hey, my special person doesn’t have to be my fake boyfriend. He can just be my favorite Crown Prince,” protests Seungwoo. He slings an arm around Wooseok’s shoulders, pulling him close into his side. “Hyung’s getting old. Don’t be mean. My feelings are as brittle as my bones.” 

“You’re heavy,” Wooseok complains, shoving weakly at Seungwoo’s arm. 

“Ah, I’m so tired I could fall over. You don’t want me to fall over, do you?”

The incoming rain makes the air thick with humidity. The pollution’s been bad these days too, though the quality of the atmosphere, at the very least, is kinder today, face masks left abandoned at the door. It’s definitely too hot to be glued to each other’s sides the way Seungwoo and Wooseok are, but Seungwoo’s too stubborn (maybe he’s too _selfish_) to let go. 

“Hey, back when we talked with your mom,” Seungwoo starts, “the story you told her—about how we started dating…” 

Wooseok tenses again.

_Ah_, maybe this is dangerous territory.

(If this were a tightrope, Seungwoo would be wobbling. If this were a tightrope, he’d make a mad sprint for the other side. So, he surges forward.)

“How long did it take you to make that up?”

“Make it up?” Wooseok echoes, and it’s the wrong part of the question to _repeat_, but Seungwoo doesn’t want to dwell on that. “I don’t know. I just knew she’d ask something like that, so I thought about it the night before. I’m glad she didn’t ask anything more because I wouldn’t have been prepared.” 

His stomach twists. For some reason, he feels disappointed. 

“The Crown Prince fell in love with me when he was sixteen, huh?” 

“He must have been an idiot when he was sixteen,” Wooseok muses, chin straight, his attention fixed on the path before him. “Always wanting things he can’t have.”

“That’s not true.” Seungwoo’s grip on Wooseok slackens and he drops his arm, admitting defeat for the day. Wooseok doesn’t move much, still too close for comfort, and Seungwoo counts that as a small victory in spite of how tight his chest continues to feel. “I heard he’s going on a date with his favorite bodyguard today.” 

“Lucky guy.” Wooseok tries, in vain, to hide a smile. He seems to notice Seungwoo’s staring at him because the smile drops soon after that, Wooseok’s head turning to take in the sight of high stone walls bordering old houses built along the neighborhood they’ve stumbled into, the palace a distant image behind them. 

Most of the houses have gates, but not because they’re particularly luxurious. The gates themselves are rusting, the stones old and crumbling. A few select houses don’t have gates at all, exposed to wandering eyes and pedestrian traffic. 

Wooseok stills, and he’s fixating on something in particular: a regular glass panel swinging door that’s in desperate need of a paint job, its canary yellow finish peeling enough to make it look like it’s on purpose.

“What are you looking at?” 

“The smudges,” Wooseok murmurs, the curve of his lips returning for reasons beyond Seungwoo. There are some beat-up toys scattered at the doorstep, the traces of children—maybe a family—blatant and apparent. “It’s nice.”

“The door?” Seungwoo blinks, following Wooseok’s gaze to make sure. It’s hard to see, but he can make out tiny handprints against the glass panels. The house seems to be run-down in more ways than one, but it’s just like Wooseok to find something special in it nonetheless. 

“Yeah.” Wooseok tears himself away from the house, smiling to himself. “It’s just nice… to see traces of people.” 

The palace is always spick and span, everything returned to its rightful place as soon as it’s displaced. Even after Wooseok makes his way through the library, it’s only a matter of minutes before someone’s come in to clean up his mess. 

“It’s very human,” Seungwoo agrees.

“It’s nice,” Wooseok comments for the third time. He starts walking again and Seungwoo follows close behind (because habits are hard to break after all). “It’d be nice to live in a house like that. Nothing too big. The right amount of mess.” 

“Would you rather live in the palace or a house like that for the rest of your life?”

Wooseok parts his lips to answer but he catches himself, seems to realize the conclusion is too immediate. He’s grappling with two halves of himself. “The palace,” he says after a weighted pause, but it’s unconvincing.

“I won’t tell anyone if you want to live in a normal house,” Seungwoo states. 

“I’m not worried you’ll tell anyone,” Wooseok answer, his head shaking left to right. “There are just some things I have to remind myself.”

“You’re human too, you know,” Seungwoo adds gently, as a _reminder_. He catches up until their steps are matched again, reaching for Wooseok’s hand, lacing their fingers together too easily. He swallows Wooseok’s momentary shock, squeezing once and then twice for good measure. It’s like they’re kids again. 

Wooseok’s hand is slack in Seungwoo’s before he tightens his grip too. This is all Seungwoo can offer as an anchor. Today, especially, he wishes he had more to give.

“Am I?” Wooseok muses, and it feels like the first time in a long time that Seungwoo’s looked at him and seen a glimpse of someone without the halo of a crown above his head. Like this, Wooseok’s just a boy. Like this, he’s just a boy without the weight of the throne on his shoulders. Like this, Wooseok isn’t Korea’s, the world’s—he’s Seungwoo’s. “I guess I am.” 

“Let’s not stress today.” Seungwoo tugs Wooseok’s arm until they’re shoulder-to-shoulder again and he can make out the gaps between Wooseok’s eyelashes if he tries. Maybe he’s being selfish, asking Wooseok for something he knows is hard to do. “I haven’t been out like this in a long time either. Let’s enjoy ourselves.” 

There’s hesitation, as there always is when it comes to anything that isn’t practiced. They’re both inexperienced and stupidly methodical, but between the two of them, one has less to lose—so Seungwoo fills in the gaps Wooseok leaves behind, thumb brushing deliberately along the curve of Wooseok’s hand in silent encouragement. 

“Wooseok.” He doesn’t turn to address the boy beside him, only looking straight ahead, his lips fixed into an easy smile. “I’ll be in your care.”

Wooseok tilts his head back, looking up at the bleary sky. He doesn’t say anything, only clasps his hand a little tighter. 

* * *

A few cameras catch up by the time they get to the museum. 

At the very least, they’ve been keeping their distance. No questions asked—only the infrequent click of a shutter and the stray whispers of bystanders making uninvited speculations. Wooseok doesn’t seem to mind much; he’s used to it, and his attention is steadfastly focused on the art. It’s a _Joseon_ portraiture exhibit and Wooseok’s been stationed right in front of the same piece for the past five minutes.

“Did you hear?” a stranger murmurs from a few meters away, arm linked with the girl beside her. “That’s probably the Crown Prince’s partner. Isn’t that crazy? I heard it’s all a media ploy to distract us from something terrible happening in the palace. My mom said that the royal family’s been hiding something and…” 

Wooseok clenches his jaw, grits his teeth, but he doesn’t move a centimeter, doesn’t even acknowledge the whispers. Seungwoo approaches him slowly, occupying the empty space beside him without so much as a word. 

“_King Yeongjo_,” Seungwoo reads aloud from the placard seated beneath the portrait. The subject is adorned in a red and gold _gonryongpo_—the same color as the King’s own dragon robes. The same colors Wooseok will wear one day. He inches closer, lets his arm bump against Wooseok’s, tugging him out of whatever whirlpool of thoughts he’d been steeping in. “What are you thinking?” 

As always, there’s no immediate response. With Wooseok, everything is a matter of deliberation. The entire world seems to have its eyes on him at all times; a single misspoken word could force him to carry scorn for weeks, months, a lifetime. At this point, second-guessing himself is probably instinct, a learned habit.

“Isn’t it strange?” Wooseok asks, his hand reaching for Seungwoo’s, and whether it’s a gesture for show or a gesture for comfort remains unanswered. His hand is cold to the touch and Seungwoo thinks, belatedly, that he should have reminded Wooseok to bring a jacket when he was mulling by the gate earlier. From behind them, a camera goes off. “They all look so peaceful.” 

He doesn’t ask who _they_ are because he knows: Wooseok’s been fixating on the portraits of kings and emperors since he first stepped foot in the room. 

“_Is_ it strange?” Seungwoo takes a good look at the portrait too. There’s a calmness to the subject’s expression, something tired in his eyes. Resignation, maybe. 

“I guess not.” Wooseok hesitates before he continues, “It’d be nice if they looked happy.” 

Maybe he’s just stalling for time, looking fruitlessly for the right answer—the right _question_. Maybe he’s too distracted by the way the smallest draft seems to send a chill down Wooseok’s spine.

Seungwoo sheds the thin coat he’d been regretting their entire walk here and drapes it over Wooseok’s shoulders. 

“I knew I should have brought a jacket,” Wooseok grumbles. 

He wants to write it off as theatrics, the way he wraps an arm around Wooseok’s shoulders, pulling him closer until he can _hear_ the tiny, sharp exhale Wooseok lets out. Seungwoo’s heart starts racing again and there’s a voice at the back of his head chastising him for being so greedy, but he pays it little attention as he presses a kiss to Wooseok’s temple. 

“Hy—” Wooseok looks up at him with wide eyes, catching himself before he can sound too surprised. “Hyung.” 

“You be happy,” Seungwoo says, meeting Wooseok’s gaze. His heart is _sprinting_ now, and Seungwoo can feel the safe he’s kept locked up at the core of his ribcage for as long as he can remember creak with exertion, with desperation. “Even if they weren’t, _you_ be happy. You can be the first.” 

A flood of an emotion Seungwoo can’t put a name to washes over Wooseok’s features and for a second, Seungwoo thinks he’s said the wrong thing again. Typical of him, really. It’s like he unlearns Wooseok as the days go by. 

But then Wooseok lets out a laugh, something akin to a breath, a sigh of relief. His fingers curl around the lapels of Seungwoo’s shirt as he angles himself forward, upward. “I’ll try,” Wooseok says, his breath tickling Seungwoo’s lips. It’s a feather-light kiss to the corner of Seungwoo’s mouth and it tosses his mind into a frenzy. 

The chaos of his emotions isn’t enough to muffle the last thing Wooseok says as he pulls away:

“_I hate being first._” 

* * *

Outside, it rains. 

A car comes to take them home and they don’t exchange a single word for the rest of the day. Wooseok retires to his room and Seungwoo spends evening wondering how he makes pretending look so easy.

The rain doesn’t stop. 

Seungwoo thinks, idly, that it really is terrible weather for a date.

* * *

Kissing Wooseok is too easy and that terrifies Seungwoo. 

When he’d first allowed Wooseok to rope him into this elaborate plan, he hadn’t anticipated difficulty distinguishing the real from the pretend. He isn’t sure how to approach the situation anymore without having to confront truths he’s buried deep within himself for too, too long. 

“You’re like, William and Kate but without the receding hairline and cheating scandal,” Yohan says, eyes glued to the screen of his phone as he scrolls through online magazine articles. Tabloids. Yohan religiously follows any self-proclaimed news site that abuses exclamation points, claiming they’re more _relatable_. “And you’re not white.” He pauses. “Also, you’re two dudes.” Another long pause. “Okay, maybe you’re not like William and Kate at all, but man… the press is on _fire_.”

There’s been a knot at the pit of Seungwoo’s stomach for the past week. After their pseudo-date, Wooseok disappears again and Seungwoo finds himself wondering if he’s done something wrong. He’s pessimistic enough to assume by default that he’s alienated Wooseok in some way, shape, or form. He’s _realistic_ enough to know that this isn’t a one-way street; not this time around, because Seungwoo knows that he’s been avoiding Wooseok too. 

He wishes he could tell Yohan the truth, if only to shed some of the guilt, confusion he’s been piggybacking for the past however-many weeks. It’s scary how quickly time has gone by, and how little Seungwoo can grasp of what defines the end. 

With each day of their elaborate ruse, Seungwoo feels the distance between himself and Wooseok widen. It’s ironic. Two people pretending to be in love becoming strangers in the process. 

“It’s good you guys got to spend some time together,” Yohan continues, finally lifting his eyes from his phone to flash a smile, genuine and kind. “You look really happy in the photos even though you’re surrounded by a bunch of portraits of old dudes.” 

“Are there any bad articles?” Seungwoo asks, still a little too unsettled to ask to see the pictures. He doesn’t want to risk being too transparent. 

Yohan puffs his cheeks out, seeming hesitant for a split-second. “Yeah, a couple. Just, you know, speculating that it’s a cover-up for something happening in the palace. Wooseok hyung never catches a break, huh? Even when he’s happy the press is on his ass about what he’s doing wrong.” 

Wooseok would never use a publicity stunt to cover up anything that concerns more than just him. He’s using their pretend relationship to ward off any distractions—but anything more than that? He’s not so wicked as to try to use Seungwoo to mislead the masses from the issues that concern them. Yohan’s right. It’s a little heartbreaking how often Wooseok’s demonized by the very people he’s lived his life for. 

“Do you think he’s used to it?” Yohan inquires as he stretches his arms above his head, the question mindlessly plucked from his stream of consciousness. 

“Probably not,” Seungwoo answers, and he wonders if Yohan can tell how bitter he is from his smile alone. “He’s just good at hiding it.” 

* * *

It’s the first time Seungwoo’s seeking Wooseok out without invitation since their arrangement began. 

He’s been giving Wooseok his space, letting the younger boy come and go as he pleases, but there’s a fickle voice chastising Seungwoo at the back of his mind, reminding him that this is _Wooseok_, and sometimes, he needs to be chased. 

Still, considering how distant Wooseok’s been, Seungwoo isn’t even sure if the _Crown Prince_ will accept his company. 

Thirty seconds pass after Seungwoo knocks on Wooseok’s door before he hears any signs of life behind it. 

“Who is it?” Wooseok calls out, voice tight, tired. 

Seungwoo doesn’t reply, only waits for the door to swing open, a disheveled face looking unfairly exhausted greeting him with a blank stare before the shock registers. In a matter of seconds, he goes from agitated to something akin to _scared_. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever seen this on Wooseok’s face before. 

“Seungwoo hyung?” Wooseok blinks, taking a step back and opening the door a little wider—an invitation. He must have been studying; there are ink smudges on his hands that look fresh. “What are you doing here?” 

What _is_ he doing here? Sneaking around looking for excuses to see Wooseok’s face in the unfamiliar gaps, periods where Wooseok resigns himself to be a palace ghost. He wants to ask where he’s been—why he always _hides_ when Seungwoo needs to, wants to see him most. 

But he can’t. 

That’d be too selfish.

The royal family treats the palace as their own kin, but there are times when Seungwoo feels the boundary that ought to exist a little too strongly. Always the wrong times. 

“I thought I told you to stop hiding,” he teases, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

Wooseok’s expression softens and he has the energy to feign incredulity, one soft exhale slipping past his lips. “It’s not—” He rubs at his cheek, a streak of blue ink dragging across his skin. “I’m not hiding,” he protests weakly. “It’s the trip. I’ve been preparing for it and not looking like an idiot takes a lot of time and energy.” 

Seungwoo presses his thumb to the tip of his tongue, reaches his hand out to the ink stain on Wooseok’s face, wiping it away to the best of his ability. Wooseok clamps on eye shut in a wince, too tired to fight, uncharacteristically acquiescent. 

“Let’s take a break,” Seungwoo suggests, hand dropping back to his side. He wants to fight the cloyingly fond smile threatening to crack his composure, but Wooseok makes it hard. “You said you wanted to go to an arcade, didn’t you? Win something from the crane game?” 

A flash of trepidation follows. Wooseok glances over his shoulder back into his room, at his desk, which is overloaded with books—some open, some closed, paper scattered about with variations of blue and black filling each blank space. “I—” He fumbles a bit, failing to put to words what he’s thinking. “It’s kind of late for a publicity stunt. I really doubt there’ll be any reporters out to catch us.” 

_Right_. It does sort of sound like Seungwoo’s asking him out on a date. 

It hadn’t been his sole intention, hadn’t even crossed his mind. All he really wanted was to have Wooseok to himself for a little while, to get Wooseok away from whatever was causing him so much stress and fatigue. 

“No cameras,” Seungwoo replies. “You need to get some fresh air.” 

“Doesn’t this go against your morals as my bodyguard?” asks Wooseok, the smile on his face wry despite how drawn thin it appears. “Sneaking me out after everyone else has gone to sleep? I’m not supposed to leave the palace without notifying my parents, you know. It’s like you’re a teenager again, hyung, just trying to get away. Except this time, you’re dragging me into it.” 

“Stop making things so complicated,” Seungwoo sighs out, taking one step forward, Wooseok taking one backward in kind, until he’s in Wooseok’s room. It isn’t his first time, but it’s been a long while since the last time Seungwoo stepped foot inside. The furnishings are the same as the rest of the royal family’s, and there are a few pictures—minimal—scattered around on bookshelves of familiar faces. Wooseok’s desk is usually neat, well-organized, but it’s chaotic in the moment, overflowing with work. On a typically empty chair, there are stacks and stacks of sketchbooks and an unhinged box he keeps his paints in sitting atop the mountain. “Let’s see… You should probably grab a hat or something. Where are your face masks?” 

“Excuse me?” Wooseok closes the door, back pressed against it, eyes twinkling with amusement as he watches Seungwoo root through his wardrobe for the perfect disguise. “Is this your room or mine?”

Seungwoo responds by tugging a black baseball cap over Wooseok’s head. Amidst the berets, it’d been hard to find, and upon second glance, Seungwoo thinks it might actually be _his_. “Good enough. Face mask?” 

“What if we get caught? Then what?”

“Then…” Seungwoo trails off. His mind’s wandering to strange places, distant memories he’s sure he shelved, locked away for good reason. Still, he manages an easy smile, shrugging his shoulders too nonchalantly for the way his heart’s racing. “I’ll take the blame. Consider it payback for all of those times you’ve looked out for me.” 

“Are you sure you’re my bodyguard?” Wooseok asks, pulling the hat off of himself to secure it atop Seungwoo’s head. The glint in his eyes sobers for a second, his tone lower, quieter, laden with an unfamiliar brand of guilt. “If you’re worried about me—”

“I just want to spend some time with you,” Seungwoo interjects, and he’s purposeful about ignoring the way Wooseok’s eyes widen almost unnoticeably. “As Seungwoo and Wooseok, not as the Crown Prince and his very handsome bodyguard. It’s been a while.” 

They’ve spent more than enough time playing pretend in front of cameras and unknowing souls, but Seungwoo isn’t lying. It _has_ been a while since he got to be in Wooseok’s company like this: just the two of them, no false pretenses, none of the frills that come with being the nation’s hottest headline. 

That seems to be more than enough to get Wooseok to cave. He rolls his eyes, looking the closest thing to annoyed he can muster up when he’s very obviously trying to conceal the small smile threatening to blossom on his face. “Fine,” he relents, “but if you don’t win me anything…”

“Hey, hey, don’t doubt me. You really think I can’t win you a prize from some measly crane machine?” The grin on Seungwoo’s lips grows impossibly wider now that Wooseok’s conceded defeat. “You should have a little more faith in me, Wooseok. I’m your hyung.”

* * *

As it turns out, crane games are much harder than they look and to say Seungwoo is embarrassed would be an egregious understatement. 

It takes about six tries before Seungwoo wins anything—a keychain with a tiny Snoopy plushie attached to it. He’s determined to win something bigger until Wooseok insists this is more than enough, though his attempt at comforting Seungwoo is hardly convincing when he has that smirk on his face that screams, _I told you so._

“I could win you something better,” Seungwoo urges.

“No offense, hyung, but I really don’t think you could,” Wooseok replies, dangling the keychain in front of Seungwoo’s face. He clasps his hand over it before Seungwoo has the chance to swat it away. “It’s fine. I like it. It kind of looks like you. Except, you know, a lot _smaller_.”

“You’re being really critical for someone who didn’t even try playing.”

“It would have been hard to sneak a giant stuffed animal back into the house,” Wooseok says with a half-hearted shrug. 

“Wow, so you’re saying you definitely would have won one…” Seungwoo bumps his shoulder against Wooseok’s. “You’re such a brat. Used to be so much cuter when you were a kid.”

Wooseok laughs faintly. “Yeah, well, growing pains,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate, choosing instead to change the subject before Seungwoo finds the courage to pry. “I didn’t know there were neighborhoods like this so close by.” 

The palace is insulated from the smaller, less-bustling corners of the city. Areas like this one—residential clusters, low-rise buildings, a handful of random businesses operating in a perpetual blow-out sale and family restaurants that close on Sundays scattered here and there, all catered to the lower-middle class and below—aren’t as accessible to members of the royal family unless there’s been a tragedy. Their advisors and aides are there for a reason: to cover ground left untouched by royalty. 

“Ah, yeah…” Seungwoo looks around. It’s quiet given the late hour. Only a few street lamps seem to be glowing at maximum capacity. “When we walked to the museum, we passed through the street right next to this one.” He jams his hands into the pockets of his pants. “You know, the one with the house you liked—with the smudged door.” 

“I remember,” Wooseok says. His facemask’s been abandoned for the time being, at least until they hit a busier street with more life to it. The furrow to his brows, the slight downward tilt of his lips doesn’t amount to much in the end because it doesn’t look like Wooseok plans on continuing his thought. But at the very last second, he does. “My dad said when he first took the throne, he spent days, weeks, just touring the country, and then the city, looking for neighborhoods just like this one, because he wanted to befriend every inch of Korea.” 

It’s hard to imagine Wooseok’s father as anything less than what he is now, but it’s almost as though the _anything less_ is what Wooseok’s clinging to as a lifeline.

“It was impossible, of course.” He scoffs, though it lacks derision. “But he tried his best. And then when the role of king caught up to him, it wasn’t as easy going back to those smaller patches of the country, of Seoul. There were different things demanding his attention and less time for him to befriend anyone, let alone an entire city.”

Beside them, a lamppost buzzes with exertion. 

“I hate that. I hate how lonely it has to be. Everyone around you is hand-picked and placed there for a reason. The people who need you most are just names and numbers because you’re _one person_ and you don’t have the time or the energy to put a face to their hurt. It’s like you said. I’m only human—but the entire country expects me to be more than that. I _want_ to be more than that.” 

Seungwoo tries to get a better look at Wooseok’s face, but it’s obscured beneath the brim of the hat he’s wearing, further dimmed by the weak glow of the moon above them. 

“Hyung, can I tell you a secret?” Wooseok tilts his head back, lifting his chin, and finally, Seungwoo catches a glimpse of his eyes—glassy, just barely rimmed red with the traces of tears. Wooseok fights them and Seungwoo has to clench his fists to refrain from reaching out. “I’m really, _really_ tired of this.” 

“Wooseok,” Seungwoo says gently, “you don’t have to be the same person your dad is.” 

“I don’t, you’re right,” Wooseok responds. A laugh follows, his eyes curving as he straightens his neck again, steels his gaze forward. The moment of weakness left abandoned—or at the very least, he tries. “But I hate trailblazing. I hate being first. I’m bad at it. I want to help people, but I don’t want to lead them the way I have to. I _can’t_.”

“Even if the space beside you is empty and the place ahead of you is blurry, I know you’re going to be a great king.” 

“I don’t think there’s room on the throne for anyone who doesn’t want it,” Wooseok confesses. “I think it’d be really lonely for someone like me.” 

Seungwoo’s heart catches in his throat. He hates himself for not knowing the right words to say, more so now than ever before. “I’ll be by your side,” he assures, his voice level despite the tightness of his chest. “At the very least, you won’t be lonely.” 

“Remember when we were younger, and I made you promise you’d stay by my side?” Wooseok kicks at a pebble on the street, eyes following it as it skips across the pavement before lodging itself in a crack. “I think I was barely eight. Barely eight and I was already so terrified of the future. It was because my mom told me that someday, you’d get married, have a family, leave to live your own life, and that was just something I’d have to understand and accept. I was too young to get it. Too young for understanding or acceptance. So, I made you promise. But now—” He shakes his head and the tiny curve of his lips remains. “Hm. I guess I feel bad.”

“That was more than ten years ago,” Seungwoo points out with a fond smile. “You came up to me with tears in your eyes, trying to pretend like you hadn’t been crying. I thought it was cute. My sister thought _I_ made you cry.” 

“You’ve never made me cry. Not like that.” Wooseok laughs again, to himself. “I’m a selfish person, hyung. I made you make so many promises knowing you’re too good of a person to break them.”

“I only promised you because I knew I could do it.” 

“Yeah,” Wooseok affirms. “You can break it if you want. The promise, I mean.”

Seungwoo falters, his hand finally finding Wooseok’s wrist, as though to stop him, to reel him back to the place he’s trying to run away from. He stops walking and Wooseok stumbles to a stop as well. “Why would I do that, Wooseok?”

Wooseok won’t look at him. “I’m not saying you would,” he says evenly. “I’m just saying that if someday, you really do want to live your own life, entirely separate from mine, you can. I won’t stop you. I won’t resent you.” 

“I was born for your side,” Seungwoo says. 

“I know.” Wooseok meets his gaze then, his air unfairly heartbroken no matter how hard he tries to conceal it with a smile. Seungwoo doesn’t know why they’re talking about this, why this thought seems to have festered in Wooseok’s mind for too long. “I wish you’d chosen it.”

He wants to tell Wooseok that he did. If he wanted to, he could have run away just like Sunhwa did. She came back, but Seungwoo never thought to leave in the first place, not for _good_. Any short attempt at breaking free from the palace always ended right after it began—any perception of the future without Wooseok never felt permanent. 

He wants to tell Wooseok that he _did_ choose it. But there’s a distance between them that Seungwoo’s never felt this palpably, this tangibly, this _heavily_ before. 

This is the space between a King and his subject. 

This is the space Wooseok once drowned in.

Now he’s forcing himself afloat—but it’s a shame (the squeeze of Seungwoo’s heart is asphyxiating) because Wooseok looks like he’s suffocating trying to navigate it. 

“I would,” Seungwoo attempts, voice tight with tethered feeling. “Even if I had a choice, I would have chosen you.” 

Wooseok breaks eye contact, his shoulders tremble once as he lets out a shudder, the bob of his throat too noticeable when he swallows thickly, attention fixed on anything but Seungwoo. He hates it, wants to go back to when they didn’t dodge each other like this.

“Wooseok, I—”

It’s recklessness that spurs him, maybe something deeper that Seungwoo still doesn’t know how to acknowledge. He closes the gap between them until Wooseok’s caged in his arms, their bodies close, faces closer. Their eyes meet again out of inevitability. If Wooseok so much as _breathed_, Seungwoo would feel it tickle him. If Seungwoo just moved forward a centimeter, two, their lips would meet and maybe, _maybe_, the uncomfortable tightness he’s been carrying in his ribcage might burst into nothing. 

In the silence of the city, all Seungwoo wants to hear is Wooseok’s heartbeat. It scares him, how all Seungwoo wants to do is _kiss_ him.

He means to ask, _Why are you running away from me?_ but the question dies at the tip of his tongue, replaces itself with something unforgivable, too honest. 

“Can I?” he all but whispers. 

Wooseok’s grip on the lapels of Seungwoo’s shirt tightens. And for a second, it almost seems as though it might happen. 

But the chattering of a small group of strangers walking toward them startles Wooseok and he’s graceless as he pushes Seungwoo away, stumbling back until there’s a safe distance between them—the both of them perfectly still as the group passes by without suspecting a thing. 

He isn’t sure what consumed him in the moment to be so careless and the twisting feeling at the pit of his stomach is hard to define. Seungwoo can’t distinguish guilt from regret. He’s scared to; thinks he knows which it is. 

“We should head back,” Wooseok murmurs, voice taut with formality. 

“Yeah,” answers Seungwoo, his hand still tingling from touching Wooseok’s face, from reeling him closer. “We should.” 

In the silence of the city, all Seungwoo wants to hear is Wooseok’s heartbeat. 

All Seungwoo hears is his own: racing against itself for a finish line that doesn’t appear to exist. 

* * *

The walk back to the palace is silent. They manage to sneak back in without much issue. At Wooseok’s door, Seungwoo tries to conjure up words to express the complicated knot of feelings he’s been nursing at his solar plexus, but he doesn’t get to. 

“I’m leaving for America tomorrow,” Wooseok reminds him, and it’s a bitter close to their rendezvous. He’s avoiding eye contact again, pulling the cap off of his head to push it into Seungwoo’s hands. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to prove myself to my parents. Seungyoun and Hangyul are accompanying me. You don’t have to come. I’ll… see you when I’m back.” 

Seungwoo nods, if only because he doesn’t trust himself to speak—not eloquently, not _rationally_. “Safe travels,” he says. 

Wooseok wavers at the entryway to his bedroom, fingers clasped around the knob, though he makes no attempt at entering. “Hyung,” he calls, back facing Seungwoo. “Thank you for tonight.” 

“Yeah,” Seungwoo returns, smiling even when Wooseok can’t see him. “Any time.” _For you_, he doesn’t add. 

The door closes. Seungwoo lets out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding and takes one staggered step backward, the hat clenched in his hand. He’s an idiot, isn’t he? Years of composure, of internalizing every dangerous emotion he’s ever felt backfiring on him in a single moment of weakness. 

He’s an idiot.

He’s an idiot and he’s in love with the one person—the _one person_—he absolutely can’t be in love with. 

His feet lead him away from Wooseok’s quarters toward the guards’, but at some point, his knees grow weak and he seats himself at a bench by the gates of the inner palace, where the Queen’s favorite lilac trees are meticulously maintained. 

It hurts. It aches. Seungwoo can’t decide what’s worse, the dull thud of rejection or the searing sprint of infatuation.

He closes his eyes, presses the heels of his hands to them. At some point, everything went wrong—he’s known this for a while, but he’s starting to think everything went wrong before anything even began.

“I told you to guard your heart, didn’t I?” 

Seungwoo looks up from his hands, can barely muster up a smile for his older sister. Sunhwa doesn’t bother returning it, her lips fixed into a frown as she grits her teeth, marching forward from where she’s announced her presence to grab Seungwoo by the ear.

“I _told_ you to be careful, didn’t I?” she asks, her voice sharp even in a whisper. 

“Noona,” Seungwoo begins, weakly, faintly. This isn’t his secret to keep, but he needs to tell someone. “We aren’t really dati—” 

“You think I didn’t know that?” 

His heart sinks for some reason. “You weren’t supposed to,” is what Seungwoo settles for. He looks around their vicinity, thinks belatedly that this isn’t a conversation he wants to be having out in the open. “Does anyone else—”

“No, probably not, but does that matter?” 

“It _does_,” Seungwoo manages to say aloud. His first concern, as always, is Wooseok. Wooseok has too much at stake for his plan to fall through at the very last second. 

“Seungwoo,” Sunhwa says sternly, and she looks so hurt that Seungwoo doesn’t even know what else to say. She grabs him by the wrist, drags him off of the bench and down the corridors until they’re quarantined in the library, doors shut behind them, the only light available streaming in through the windows from the moon and stars. “Seungwoo,” she says again, and there’s a tremble to her words that he hates himself for. “What is he to you? Not the Crown Prince—what is _Kim Wooseok _to you?” 

How is he supposed to answer that? How is he expected to put to words the mess of feelings tangled at his very core? How is he obligated to feel? Do his obligations follow him even now? How cruel is it that even in this split second when there are no wandering ears listening to his heart beat traitorously, he still can’t manage to utter the truth?

“Don’t worry about it,” Seungwoo begins to say, but Sunhwa cuts him off.

“It’s too late. I’m worrying,” she grits out. “There’s nothing you can do about that. I’m telling you to stop locking up every single stray feeling you have, Han Seungwoo. What is Kim Wooseok to you?” 

“I don’t know,” Seungwoo admits, slowly. “Seriously, noona, don’t w—”

“Don’t worry about it? I see you two sneak out for hours and come back looking as though you’ve broken your own hearts and you tell me not to worry about it? _I’m worrying_.” Sunhwa drops Seungwoo’s wrist. “What is he to you? Tell me honestly.”

“Noona.” He must sound like he’s begging at this point. And he is. He doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t want to confront anything, not when it’s true—not when it really does feel like his heart’s gathered in pieces. “It’s really not—”

“Who’s the person you think of when you wake up in the morning?” 

Seungwoo’s words trail off too abruptly. “Noona,” he echoes.

“Who’s the person you think of before you go to sleep at night? The first face to pop into mind when you’re happy? When you’re sad? When you’re _lonely_? Who’s the person you think of when nothing is going right and the only stupid sentiment you can conjure up is, ‘_I hope at least this person is having a good day_’? Who’s the person you would drop everything for in a second if they needed you? Who’s the person you hope _never_ stops needing you?” 

“_Noona_—”

“Seungwoo, who is that person? _Who is that person_? And at what point do the responsibilities you’re shackling yourself to stop being just that and start being more because of who that person is to you?” 

He covers half of his face with his hand, a half-hearted tug of the lips close to breaking just barely present on his face. “That’s not fair,” Seungwoo says, his voice too quiet for anyone in the world to hear. 

Sunhwa hears though. She always does. “Of course it’s not fair, you idiot,” she says, the frown she’d been wearing like armor replaced with a shaky smile, empathetic. “Just think about it, Seungwoo. Okay? It doesn’t have to be such an ordeal being happy. It really doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it. Stop thinking yourself into a corner worrying about the future and just focus on right now. I don’t want you to worry about who you were told to be. I want you to be happy.” 

He wonders what went through Wooseok’s mind when he first uttered Seungwoo’s name at the press conference months ago, the air of confidence emanating from his body as he told hundreds of cameras flashing in his face that he was already in love—had been in love since he was sixteen. He wonders what Wooseok was thinking when he asked Seungwoo in person, desperation too heavy yet too buoyant in his eyes, pulling Seungwoo deeper and deeper in. 

He wonders why he never asked the right questions—the questions he _wanted_ to know the answers to.

(_Why me_?)

He wonders why he always asked Wooseok to take care of him, why he promised he would take care of Wooseok in return, just to let things fall to shambles out of his fear of the unknown. 

“Who are you thinking of right this second?” Sunhwa’s whisper loses its edge now, like she’s exhausted too, like her heart has been aching right next to Seungwoo’s. “That person—whoever’s in your mind—maybe they’re just as tired of hiding as you are.” 

When Seungwoo closes his eyes, he can imagine Wooseok’s face leaning closer, his lips centimeters from Seungwoo before he presses a kiss to the corner of Seungwoo’s mouth, whispers something about how he _hates being first._

He hates being first, but Seungwoo can’t help but imagine Wooseok’s hand reaching for him across the divide that grows between them. Seungwoo’s the one who’s been fumbling trying to grab it. 

The Wooseok Seungwoo knows doesn’t want to rule the country alone. He doesn’t want to rule the country at all. 

And now he has to do both because luck has never been on Wooseok’s side.

But Seungwoo is. 

* * *

He falls in love with Wooseok when he’s almost eighteen and sneaking back into the palace after running away from his dad following an ugly argument. He doesn’t have a lot of rebellious stints or great escapes to his name (nothing compared to Sunhwa’s wild child days) but there are moments in his life where all he wants to do is run. 

Wooseok’s standing at the entryway of the inner palace then, barely visible from where he’s hidden under the shade of an age-old lilac tree, his hands folded behind his back, head dipped into a bow. His mouth is tugged into the frustrated line that always accompanies any bitterness, disgruntlement he feels, and Seungwoo can see it from even where he’s hiding in the corner of the nearest corridor. There’s an advisor yelling at the young prince, waving around a flat stick, scolding him for wandering palace outskirts too late. 

At the last second, Wooseok glances over and locks eyes with Seungwoo for the duration of a single breath before turning away. 

Seungwoo swallows thickly and forces himself to keep walking. 

It’s not every day the Crown Prince sticks his neck out to cover for you, and Seungwoo dodges any punishment he would have gotten beyond his father’s unforgiving stare because Wooseok takes it for him. 

And when he finds the younger boy the next morning, palms still red and swollen from the brunt of an oak walking stick, Seungwoo’s heart thuds too loudly at the sight of Wooseok’s neck turning a bright pink when Seungwoo leans in to whisper, “_Thanks_.”

“_I’ll look out for you_,” Wooseok says, and he’s so young but he speaks with such conviction that Seungwoo almost laughs. He’s going to be a handful of a king someday and it’ll be his responsibility to be Wooseok’s shadow. “_You need someone too._”

And maybe that’s okay. 

When Wooseok’s looking at him with such determination, it’s hard to dread the future. Seungwoo wouldn’t want to be anywhere but by Wooseok’s side. 

He’s seventeen when he realizes his future’s his dream; seventeen when he shucks away the disappointment he’d grown up feigning at being his father’s carbon copy and replaces it with the steadfast truth that he’ll be the other half of Wooseok’s coin. 

Seventeen when his heart swells as Wooseok smiles and says, “_It didn’t hurt. I can manage this much for you_.”

* * *

At the last minute, Wooseok’s father backs out of the trip for health reasons, so Wooseok departs for America quietly on his own. He’ll be back in a week, give or take a few days, and hopefully that’s more than enough time for Seungwoo to get his affairs in order. 

He’s known his feelings for Wooseok existed for a long while. It was always a matter of acknowledging them, letting them bloom on their own—something Seungwoo has been remarkably apt at doing the complete opposite of. Now, though, it seems inevitable that he’ll have to face his feelings, face _Wooseok_, honestly. 

He just isn’t sure how when Wooseok is the Crown Prince, and the Crown Prince wanted to rule with someone who isn’t Seungwoo. 

“I’m bummed,” Byungchan announces, his voice rising three octaves, extra grating through the phone. “_The_ Han Seungwoo finally opens up to his cutest dongsaeng and it’s just to say that you’re giving up? Weak. _Coward_.” 

“I’m not giving up,” Seungwoo says, an amused laugh slipping past his lips. “I never started anything in the first place.”

It’d just felt intuitive telling Byungchan the bare minimum of Seungwoo’s dilemma. He’s clipped nonetheless, maybe out of habit, keeping things as vague as possible. All Byungchan’s deduced from what Seungwoo’s told him is—

“You have feelings for Wooseok hyung but you think he has feelings for someone else?” From Byungchan’s end, Seungwoo can make out a rustling noise. “I guess that’s an upgrade from, like, having feelings for Wooseok hyung but valiantly sacrificing true love out of dedication to your job and the country. Patriotic, maybe, but _so_ last year.”

“You’re giving me a headache,” Seungwoo warns.

Byungchan snickers through a mouthful of what Seungwoo’s assuming are gummy worms. “Sorry, sorry. Just kidding! I’m just… kind of at a loss for what to tell you, hyung. To be honest, I’m not used to you coming to me for advice.” He lets out another laugh, sobered. “Not to say it’s a bad thing. I think it’s about time, actually. Doesn’t it get suffocating keeping everything to yourself?” 

Seungwoo wisely chooses not to answer.

“Thanks for talking to me,” Byungchan continues. “I wish I could help more, but it’s kind of hard when I’m thousands of miles away. Do you have any idea who Wooseok hyung has feelings for?” 

“Don’t know,” Seungwoo replies. “The only face that comes to mind is Jinhyuk.”

A weighted pause. “Have you talked to Jinhyuk hyung yet?” 

“Jinhyuk? He hasn’t been around,” Seungwoo answers easily. “Why?” 

He can _hear_ Byungchan shrug from miles away. “Just think you should,” he says, clearly not intending on explaining any further than that. “I _also_ think your worries are baseless, but we can unpack that another day.” 

“What would you know, Choi Byungchan?” Seungwoo teases, his eyes closing as he pushes his bangs away from his face. 

“You’re such a coward, hyung,” Byungchan groans out, over-dramatic as always. “To think the fearless Han Seungwoo would cower in the face of love. What a terrible turn of events. ” 

“I’m not fearless. You’re the one who used to kill the bugs around here.” 

Byungchan snorts, exasperation ebbing into something akin to fondness. “Yeah, how have you been surviving without me?” 

“By a thread.”

“_Clearly_.”

“Don’t push it.” Seungwoo drops his free hand back to his side, gaze flitting from the floor to the open sky. He wonders if Wooseok’s landed by now. He ought to message Seungyoun or Hangyul to make sure everything’s okay. “Sorry. I feel like all of our conversations lately have been about me.”

“Just this once, I’m okay with it,” Byungchan says with a sniffle. “On a serious note, don’t apologize.” 

“I’ll let you get back to soul-searching. Next time we talk, hopefully it’ll be with some better news?”

“Wait, hyung—” Another pause. “Do you… Do you know why I left Korea?” 

“You never brought it up. I just figured you were getting antsy.”

“Yeah, _well_, I was, but that wasn’t all.” Seungwoo wishes they were video calling if only to get a better grasp of where Byungchan’s going with this. His face is an open book that Seungwoo is an expert at reading by now, but just hearing his voice makes it hard to decipher what’s going on in Byungchan’s mind. “I guess I kind of… fell in love? With someone? Who had a really different, really refreshing view of the world. He was the one who encouraged me to broaden my horizons. And, you know, I really miss Korea a lot, and I know I’ll be back there someday, but I wouldn’t change my decision for the world.” 

He’d more or less figured Byungchan was dating someone, though it’s uncharacteristic for the younger boy to keep it as private as he has for however long they’ve been dating. 

“Are you fishing for compliments?” Seungwoo jokes.

“Ugh,” Byungchan says with feeling. “I’m _not_. I just—I guess I’m trying to say that… Um… Hm! Finding someone special who you can talk to… who has your best interests in mind… who’d do anything to support you with their whole heart…” He clears his throat. “That’s a really special thing, hyung. Even more special when you have feelings for them. I just don’t want you to let go of Wooseok hyung because you’re a big coward when it matters most!”

“I’m happy for you, Byungchan,” Seungwoo says slowly, carefully. He isn’t sure how to respond, if there’s anything he’s supposed to say at all. “I think Wooseok’s probably tired of people making decisions for him, though. I don’t want to be one of those people.” 

“Hyung?” Byungchan lowers his voice and his words are delicate, as though Byungchan’s tiptoeing around Seungwoo. It’s unlike the younger boy to be so cautious with his words, but there’s a special sort of consideration to his tone as he speaks, and Seungwoo thinks distantly that Byungchan really has grown in a matter of months. “I don’t think this is a decision you’re making for him, though.” The softest chuckle rings in Seungwoo’s ear and for a second, it almost feels like Byungchan’s sitting right next to him, giving Seungwoo the push he needs in person. “It’s one you’re making for yourself.” 

* * *

**Cho Seungyoun**

landed safe and sound sir!!!!!!!!! i packed the red pepper flakes too  
how did u know wooseok would get tired of western food so quick lol

**Cho Seungyoun**

he told us not to bother u but since u asked! he’ll be in talks all day tmr  
boring stuff about trade and shit im sure but i’ll let u know if chaos strikes 

**Cho Seungyoun**

p.s. if u rly wanted to know u could txt him urself 

**Cho Seungyoun**

no shade tho 

**Cho Seungyoun**

p.p.s. plz don’t break up i have a bet w/ hangyul that u guys will last  
not that hangyul doesn’t want u guys to last hes just being edgy 

**Cho Seungyoun**

~*~*devils advocate*~*~

**Cho Seungyoun**

oh shit wooseok noticed me texting BYE 

* * *

Ambassador Lee visits the palace and Jinhyuk comes in tow behind his father, not at all out-of-place despite Wooseok’s absence. Jinhyuk has a knack for finding a space wherever he goes; he has an aura to him that draws people in, from old friends to passing acquaintances to complete strangers. 

It’s why he doesn’t think much of it when Jinhyuk finds Seungwoo on the edge of palace posterior and asks to _catch up_. 

For the first ten, twenty minutes of their conversation, they do catch up. Jinhyuk talks about his travels, how he’s more or less settled in the States for the time being—though he’s inclined to come back to Korea for good sometime soon, just to show his dad that he’s serious about his future and not just playing around. Seungwoo relents here and there as Jinhyuk peppers him with idle questions, talks about training, about how Dongwook asked about his sister and Seungwoo’s suspicious, and the weird limbo he feels trapped in right this second being grounded in Korea while Wooseok’s in America. 

“What a brat, huh?” Jinhyuk grins good-naturedly. “In his head, he’s doing all of the right things. It always takes him a little while to realize not everyone’s going to agree with him.” 

Seungwoo chuckles, stretching his legs out before him. “Even when he’s acting up, he’s doing it because it makes sense to him. It’s hard to stay mad.”

“He used to be a lot meaner, _scarier_,” Jinhyuk recalls, shuddering animatedly as though lingering in a particularly sour memory. “Growing up in the palace definitely forced him to be more mindful. For better or for worse.”

“Maybe for worse,” muses Seungwoo. 

“How are you holding up?” Jinhyuk turns his head to look at Seungwoo, gaze searching. He’s asking out of concern, out of genuine worry, and Seungwoo feels a little apologetic that Jinhyuk’s been bearing so much residual hurt and confusion out of sheer empathy alone. Feels even worse that even in this moment, Seungwoo’s a little envious of him. “I know he kind of sprung it on you out of nowhere, but you guys have been doing really well! At least, from what I see. Has… Has Wooseok said anything to you?” 

“Said anything to me?” Seungwoo echoes. 

“Guess not.” Jinhyuk rubs his neck before facing forward again, fingers drumming absentmindedly against the armrest of the bench they’ve chosen to occupy. “It’s a huge risk he’s taking, you know. And to think he was going to tackle it alone. You’re really saving his life, hyung. Has he thanked you yet? I’ll thank you on his behalf. You’re doing a lot for someone who won’t tell you what’s going on in his head. I wish I was as patient as you!” 

_The person I’d want to rule with doesn’t want anything to do with the throne._

His head throbs. Wooseok’s voice is sticky. 

“Jinhyuk, you know, I really wish I could dislike you.” There’s an ambiguous smile on Seungwoo’s lips. Truth be told, he doesn’t think he could resent Jinhyuk no matter how hard he tried. “You could have made my life so much easier.”

Jinhyuk raises his brow curiously, expression devoid of any falsity. “What do you mean, hyung?” 

It might be a secret, but it’s bursting at the seams, and even Seungwoo’s struggling to swallow it whole. “If you’d just—” _loved him back._ His words weaken, subside, until his sentence dangles incomplete. Seungwoo runs a hand through his hair instead and sinks back against the bench, wondering if he looks as tired as he feels. “He… wanted you to rule with him.” 

The interest in Jinhyuk’s face drains almost immediately, replaces itself with genuine confusion. “Who did?” 

Seungwoo purses his lips together in another smile, tighter this time. Distantly, he wonders how long it’ll take before pretending is going to take its toll on him and snap the last straw in half. “Wooseok,” he says, the name torn from his throat with much futility. “Wooseok wanted you to rule with him.”

This time, the confusion fades with the spark of a laugh, thick with incredulity. “No, he didn’t,” Jinhyuk replies too quickly, too _confidently_. “Who told you that?” 

It occurs to Seungwoo then that Wooseok hasn’t told him explicitly that Jinhyuk is the one he wanted to rule with. Sure, he’s making an assumption, but he knows Wooseok too well—knows by process of elimination alone that there’s no one else he would _want_ by his side than someone as reliable as Jinhyuk, someone who knows him as well as Jinhyuk does. He’d never considered the possibility of there being anyone else in the equation. 

(And he lets himself feel a little disappointed now because there’s always been a too-loud part of him that’s wanted to occupy the greater portion of Wooseok’s heart.) 

“In a way, I guess he did?” 

“What else did he tell you?” 

_Not enough_, Seungwoo almost says aloud. He doesn’t have any reason to feel bitter, does he? If he wanted to know he could have asked—_should_ have asked. He’s swimming in assumptions and guesses instead. Maybe Byungchan was right. Seungwoo’s always a coward when it counts the most. 

After a moment passes, Seungwoo explains everything that happened after the first meeting with the Queen. How Wooseok had explained that there was only one person he wanted to rule with—that that person didn’t want anything to do with the throne, how Wooseok would rather rule alone than with anyone else. He doesn’t say anything more than that, doesn’t bring up the way Wooseok had nearly broken down in front of him talking about how _tired_ he was envisioning the future; doesn’t mention the times the line blurred and Seungwoo was overwhelmed with the desire to erase it altogether. 

“I just figured it was you,” Seungwoo explains, straightening up in his seat. He picks at a loose thread at the end of his sleeve. His sister would smack his hand away if she were here. 

Jinhyuk parts his lips to say something before stopping himself. “Anything else?” 

“I asked him if he thought he was being selfish,” concludes Seungwoo. Looking back, he isn’t sure why he asked. Wooseok has room to afford being greedy, self-serving. It’s about time he was selfish. “That’s it.” 

“Ah…” Jinhyuk sighs, exasperation lingering even after the tendril of air has left his ribcage. “Don’t you look at him and want to spoil him sometimes? All eyes in the country follows his every move and sometimes he’s too scared to even take a breath.” He folds his hands, resting them atop his stomach, sinking further into the bench. “If he asked me to rule with him, I think I might have said yes. Not because I’m in love with Kim Wooseok. He’s my best friend and I _love_ him, but, uh—I mean, I have a boyfriend, and Wooseok has his own shit to figure out. _But_! If I didn’t have anyone else in my life, if Wooseok really needed me, I would have said yes.”

Seungwoo falters, too many emotions falling upon him in droves. There are lightbulbs going off in Seungwoo’s head, some persistent, others in corners he didn’t even know were occupied. “But—”

“_But_ he didn’t. He didn’t ask me. He didn’t ask _anyone_. Because the person he wanted to ask would spoil him just like I would. Because the person he wanted to ask would spoil him while wanting nothing less than the throne. The person he _wanted_ to ask would have given up what they wanted for his happiness. So, he didn’t ask them.”

“He should hav—”

“He didn’t ask _you_.” 

_Oh_. 

It’s hard to breathe. 

There’s a disbelieving laugh asking to be ripped from his throat, but Seungwoo can’t even manage that. His chest feels tight, his head lighter. The cognitive dissonance is _loud_, telling him there’s no reason Wooseok would really be in _love_ with him—that even if he were, this wouldn’t qualify as permission for Seungwoo to let himself reciprocate. 

In the ideal world, they’d fall in love like normal people and face the future like normal people.

He knows too well that this isn’t an ideal world; knows even better that they’ll never _be_ normal people.

(But if Wooseok had _asked_; if Wooseok _wanted_ to take a chance anyway—Seungwoo knows, he _knows_ he would have said yes.) 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” 

“You guys have that in common, you know?” Jinhyuk shakes his head, the disappointment palpable. He’s not angry, Seungwoo knows this. He’s hurt because his best friend’s heart has been broken over and over again by Wooseok’s own hands and he’s spent all of these years watching, helpless. “You look at what the stars have written out for you and take it to the nth degree, decide you’ll never stray from it. Some things are meant to be extrapolated, hyung. You and Wooseok are both terrified of playing the wrong role, huh?” 

“If he—” It’s like the words die at the tip of Seungwoo’s tongue. He lets out a skeleton of a laugh, something hoarse, half-full. “If he wanted me to stay by his side, then—”

“It’s not that simple.” The gentle curve of Jinhyuk’s lips is overflowing with a pain unique from Seungwoo’s own. It grows into a grin, bittersweet, almost apologetic, as though Jinhyuk himself wishes he’d said something sooner. It’s unfortunate how the situation’s grown and grown like a balloon stretched thin. Now all that’s left are traces. Always traces. Any second now, the balloon will pop. “I shouldn’t have told you, but I think you should know. At this point, you’re the only one who can take care of Wooseok the way he needs to be taken care of.” 

“He could have just asked,” Seungwoo insists. 

“It’s really not that simple, hyung,” repeats Jinhyuk, turning again, chest rising and falling slowly, like fatigue is leaving him in blankets. The grin he’d been bearing fades again into something more muted, a twinge of hope lingering in what remains. 

Seungwoo wants to argue that it _is_, but Jinhyuk’s expression so genuinely aches that Seungwoo’s own breath catches in his throat.

“Wooseok’s spent his entire life having people placed around him. He’s seen some come and go, has always been told not to get too attached—just in case they decide to move on. To someone like you, Wooseok’s technically just a chapter in your life. You can flip to the next one whenever you want. It’s not like that for him. He doesn’t have a choice. The pace of his story isn’t set by him.” Jinhyuk exhales, a quiet laugh mixed into his breath. “You think he could have just asked?” He bites his lip. “He didn’t want to _have_ to ask.”

* * *

**Lee Hangyul**

Seungyoun hyung’s phone died but he told me to update you  
Crown prince’s talks went swimmingly. Much adored by everyone.  
His parents should be proud. He seemed like a real king 

* * *

Rain begins to drizzle as evening creeps into night. 

White noise fills his head and Seungwoo’s on the verge of leaving palace grounds to run until his chest aches and his mind’s empty when he bumps into his father. 

He tilts his head in a half-hearted bow and moves to leave, to sidestep his dad, but he’s stopped in his tracks. 

“You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”

Seungwoo stills, straightens up out of habit. His dad’s always been a stickler for posture—used to say there was no place at the table for anyone who slouched. It’s their first time having a real conversation since the news first dropped weeks, months ago. Time passes so selfishly. Seungwoo’s been too caught-up in his own thoughts to try to fight it. 

“I’m fine,” he replies instinctively, and a part of him wishes his dad had just ignored him. The other, quieter but stern, is relieved. 

“You’re not strong for pretending,” his father says, and the word _pretending_ pierces straight through the softest part of Seungwoo’s heart. 

Growing up, all he’d ever really thought to do was chase his father’s coattails. And after the chase grew tiring, grew fruitless, and it settled in Seungwoo’s bones that his dad’s footsteps were too large to fill, he grew rebellious and stir-crazy trying to trailblaze a path for himself. The contention, the bitterness he’d felt for his own father growing up, has faded into something more refined—and the only word Seungwoo can think of is _respect_. 

Sometimes, Seungwoo’s still twelve and terrified of disappointing his dad. Maybe twelve-year-old Seungwoo’s the one who won’t let him love Wooseok back. 

“I’m fine,” he repeats, this time with a smile. “And if I’m not, I will be tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, then the day after. You taught me that.” 

His father’s brows furrow and in the moon’s cast, he looks old, frail, just as tired as Seungwoo. 

“Seungwoo,” he begins, his voice like gravel. If Seungwoo squints, he can remember the first and last bedtime story his dad read for him, the thunder in his voice as he mimicked the tigers of _Mount Kumgang_, the lightness to his tone when he voiced the son who was fighting them to avenge his father. “You’ve grown well.” 

He freezes, a chill running through his entire body. “You raised me,” Seungwoo says. 

“Not perfectly,” his father muses. “The imperfect things I’ve taught you, you’ve grown out of them well.” 

Years in Seoul can’t replace the Busan drawl to his dad’s words, and they settle too warmly in the blank spaces of Seungwoo’s being. When he was younger, it was easier to seek his dad’s affection, to clamber onto his lap or to jump on his back, laughter loud and buoyant in his chest. 

The stunted affection they quietly exist in doesn’t compare to his youth, but this comes close. 

“Yeah?” Seungwoo laughs shakily. “Where is this coming from?”

“A good father will only give to his children. He won’t take things away.” Silence sits naturally. Time ticks loudly, muffling anything left unspoken. “If you’re happy—”

_I won’t take it away._

Seungwoo turns his head, angles his chin upward so his eyes don’t betray him now, though something—maybe it’s the _rain_—pricks at the corners. 

“Sure,” he says, and if he trembles, his father doesn’t point it out. “Sure, okay.” 

They stand perfectly still and Seungwoo doesn’t dare breathe too loudly until he hears his father’s footsteps slowly retreating, the soft thud of a door yanking the tension from Seungwoo’s body. 

He lets out a tiny gasp, intermingled with a laugh—almost disbelieving. Whatever doubt remained moments prior shrivels into something small, something inconsequential. 

The drizzle turns into downpour. Seungwoo wonders if it’s pouring where Wooseok is too. 

That’d be a shame. Wooseok hates the rain, after all. 

* * *

It happens the following evening when he’s out for a jog. Seungwoo decides for himself what the trajectory of _his_ story’s going to be after a spontaneous run-in with a reporter. He figures if the stars really are as relenting as Jinhyuk insists, then all he has to do is wait for Wooseok’s story to converge with his.

Maybe come tomorrow, he’ll want to blame it on shock, on surprise, on fumbling in the moment. 

Maybe come tomorrow, he won’t regret a single word.

Maybe come tomorrow, things will be different, things will be the same, nothing will have changed at all and Seungwoo will be as in love tomorrow as he is today. 

* * *

_CROWN PRINCE’S BEAU CONFESSES THE TRUTH… THINGS ARE MORE SERIOUS THAN IMAGINED!_

* * *

Wooseok essentially announces his own return, a week and three days after his departure, by marching straight to Seungwoo’s room, hovering outside of his door until Dongwook takes pity on him and notifies Seungwoo he has a guest.

By the time Seungwoo makes it out of his workout to his room, Wooseok’s curled up at the front door, knees hugged to his chest, eyes red, clearly sleep-deprived. 

“You should have gone inside,” Seungwoo says before remembering he hasn’t seen Wooseok in over a week. A week felt like a small eternity and it’s strange how out-of-practice he feels; how, for a second, Seungwoo forgets how to greet him. “Welcome back—”

“Why did you say it?” Wooseok forces himself up, stumbling backward until he bumps into the door again, pushing away Seungwoo’s hand and rejecting his assistance in the process. “You didn’t have to. Why did you say it?” 

Seungwoo knows perfectly well what Wooseok’s referring to, but he doesn’t have an answer for him because he isn’t quite sure himself why he said what he said either. He isn’t sure what possessed him in the moment—why, when the reporter shoved a phone in Seungwoo’s face during his late-night jog and asked him, “_Who is the Crown Prince to you_?” the first thing Seungwoo thought to say was: “_I love him._”

(“_You love him_?” the reporter had repeated, looking startled herself. 

His father’s voice had been loud in his ears then, reminding him that no one would take Seungwoo’s happiness away if he didn’t let them. 

“_Yeah_,” Seungwoo had confirmed, the smile on his face too easy, un-practiced, graceless. The gravity of his words doesn’t settle in until much, much later; and even then, he isn’t sure if he regrets them. “_I’ll stay by his side for as long as he lets me._”)

He only knows that he meant it. 

“Hyung, don’t force yourself to say things you don’t mean,” Wooseok grits out, jaw tight, shoulders shaking. There’s a silent ache in his eyes as he searches Seungwoo’s face for _something_, some indication that he’s reading between the lines, the unspoken _Don’t make this harder than it has to be_ too loud in Wooseok’s voice. “_Please_,” Wooseok adds, and Seungwoo can’t tell if he’s asking, pleading, for Seungwoo’s sake or for his own. 

“Ah, sorry. It was the first thing that came to mind,” Seungwoo says, and he’s careful not to bridge the gap, the distance between them. He’s almost worried he might scare Wooseok away. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “Didn’t mean to make you worry as soon as you got back home.” 

“That’s not… Why would—” Wooseok swallows thickly and turns his entire body away. He must feel guilty for lashing out, his brows creased as he takes a second to reconsider the situation. The next word he manages, just barely above a whisper, is, “Sorry.” 

“Why are you sorry?” Seungwoo rubs his neck sheepishly. Any other day and he might have laughed, but it feels foreign today. _Wooseok_ feels foreign today. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Wooseok.” 

The pin-drop silence that follows is excruciatingly long. The hallway is empty and for a space he used to find so narrow and cramped, it feels too big for two people. A part of him wishes it would swallow him whole. 

“No, I—” Wooseok cuts himself off abruptly, fingers curling into fists, unfurling seconds later. “I did do something wrong.” He finds Seungwoo’s gaze then, looks up at him like he’s a stranger, too. Wooseok is wearing his mask, playing the role of Crown Prince again—an unfair defense mechanism because Seungwoo still hasn’t figure out how to crack it. “I never should have asked you in the first place.”

Seungwoo takes half a step forward before stopping. Something sinks to the pit of his stomach and he can’t put a finger on it, but it almost feels as though Wooseok’s getting further and further away from him. “Wooseok?”

“I figured things out while I was away,” Wooseok explains quickly, his expression sapped dry of any emotion. He presses his lips together tightly, fixes them into a carefully constructed, practiced smile. It’s nothing like the smiles Seungwoo’s grown so fond of over the years. “Thank you for the past few months, hyung. You don’t need to go out of your way to play pretend with me anymore.”

The word _pretend_ hits him too hard again. It hurts how much he misses Wooseok when he’s standing right in front of him. Idly, Seungwoo wonders if things would be different, better, if they’d never thought to play this game in the first place.

This shouldn’t be enough to force Seungwoo to shrink back into his shell, but everything Sunhwa, Byungchan, Jinhyuk, his own father told him grows quieter in his mind by the second. Maybe the stars are stubborn after all. 

Maybe cowardice doesn’t disappear overnight. 

“Wooseok,” he attempts, tone feeble. Instinctively, his hand reaches out to clasp Wooseok’s, to _anchor_ him.

“Thank you,” Wooseok interjects. His gaze flickers from the side of Seungwoo’s face to their hands before he extricates himself, taking one step back. “I’m talking to my parents first thing tomorrow.” He inhales slowly. “I—”

“_Wooseok_,” Seungwoo tries. 

“Hyung,” Wooseok says with a faint smile, something too close to breaking. He takes another step away. “Thank you. For taking care of me.” Another deep breath, a shudder. Something shatters. Is it his heart or Wooseok’s? “You can rest now.” 

It’s after Wooseok’s turned and walked away, steps brisk and hurried, that Seungwoo realizes the sick, twisting feeling in his stomach is the product of a poorly masked _goodbye_. 

* * *

He doesn’t have the courage to tell his sister, to tell Jinhyuk, to tell _anyone_ what sort of selfish, reckless thoughts are racing through his mind. The mere idea of leaving Wooseok alone when the last thing Wooseok wants to be is _alone_ wraps around Seungwoo like a fickle vine. There’s too much at stake for Seungwoo to act on anything, though: his family’s pride, his future, Wooseok’s future—

All he wants to do is chase after Wooseok, but Seungwoo isn’t sure if that’s an option for him anymore. 

His agitation must be noticeable because while Seungwoo’s been staring holes into absolutely nothing at the kitchen table in complete silence, the only other person in his vicinity finally finds reason to speak. 

“The Crown Prince,” Dongwook begins, startling Seungwoo out of his momentary trance, “has a meeting with the King and the Queen at seven.”

Seungwoo pauses. “Oh,” he manages. He should know Wooseok’s schedule but the way Wooseok said _You can rest now_ last night lingers too poignantly. “I… see.” 

“You don’t have anything you’d like to say to him before he meets with the King?” Dongwook asks, too knowingly. He isn’t accusatory by any means, but Seungwoo feels naked in front of him, the same way he did when Sunhwa first called him out. 

“No,” Seungwoo says, mustering up a weak smile. He looks up from the table at Dongwook when a steaming mug of coffee is placed in front of him. “Nothing I should say, at least.” 

The older man seats himself across from Seungwoo, palms pressed to his own cup. “Yohan’s been concerned about you. So has your eldest sister.” 

“I’m—”

“—fine, I’m sure.” Dongwook mirrors Seungwoo’s smile, only his is sturdier. “I just thought I would let you know that there are a handful of people around you who only want the best for you.” 

Seungwoo wraps his hands around the mug, trying, in vain, to distract himself from the weight of _everything_ by focusing on the warmth emanating from the brew. “I see,” he repeats, the words lifeless. “Thank you.”

“Including the Crown Prince,” Dongwook adds, quieter now. The smile remains, though it’s muted—something gentler, wielding a secret Seungwoo’s too afraid to ask for. “I’m sure a lot of what he’s been saying and doing is rooted in what he thinks would be best for you.” 

A laugh slips out then, something soft, raw around the edges. “That’s _my_ job,” Seungwoo says. 

“Our jobs are to protect the royal family.” Dongwook peers out of the kitchen window, the reflection of the tree branches right outside of the glass reflected in the dark of his eyes. “I get the feeling this was never just a job for you.” 

_It’s complicated_, Seungwoo doesn’t explain. _You see, Wooseok’s all I’ve ever cared to know_. 

“It doesn’t seem like you’re acting in any royal capacity right this second,” continues Dongwook, leaning back into his seat, head shifting until he’s looking straight at Seungwoo. “And I doubt you will be in ten minutes when it’s seven.” 

“Hyung,” Seungwoo starts to say, formalities abandoned at the doorstep. “I’m not really sure what you’re telling me to do.”

“I’m not sure either,” Dongwook admits. “I’m just hoping at some point you realize what it is you want to do, and you do that.” He glances at the time, unceremoniously rising from his seat, cup discarded in the kitchen sink. “You can still make it. When I bumped into the Crown Prince this morning, it seemed like he was hoping he’d run into you instead.” 

“I think it’s a few years early for me to be interrupting a royal meeting,” Seungwoo jokes, voice weak. 

“You’ve always been something of an overachiever,” Dongwook replies easily. “I don’t think that’s completely outside the realm of possibility.” 

He pictures Wooseok lingering outside of the guards’ quarters, looking for an excuse to take everything back. 

“When he told me what his morning plans were, it almost seemed like he was asking me to deliver a message,” explains Dongwook, his hand poised to open the door. “I’m not sure. Maybe I’m reading into it too much? I figured it wouldn’t hurt delivering it just in case.” The door creaks as Dongwook pushes it open, halfway out when he adds, “Good luck, Seungwoo.”

Seungwoo stares into the cup of coffee in front of him, catching sight of his shaky reflection. How unfair. How _unfair_ to leave him with the image of a cautious, anxious Wooseok seeking Seungwoo’s company, seeking his presence one last time. How unfair to corner Seungwoo like this. 

He rubs at the corner of his eye before abandoning the mug to take his leave. Five minutes to seven. If he runs, he might be able to make it. 

* * *

“Wooseok! Wait up!” 

The relief Wooseok greets him with when he turns to face Seungwoo catches Seungwoo off-guard. There’s a palpable trepidation to Wooseok’s features and it’s the first time in a long while that the younger man has appeared this anxious. “Hyung,” he says faintly. “You’re—”

“Let me go with you,” Seungwoo urges. “I won’t interfere. Just let me go with you.”

“You don’t have to,” Wooseok begins to protest.

“I know. But _you_ don’t have to do things alone.” Seungwoo takes one step forward, hand resting at the bend of Wooseok’s arm, ushering him toward the library where the King and Queen await their son’s audience. It reminds him of the first time they spoke to the Queen, except this time around, they can go in knowing, not just hoping, they’ll be with each other. “Let’s go?” 

Wooseok swallows the lump in his throat, gaze dithering until he gathers what’s left of his confidence and manages a nod. “Let’s go,” he echoes, first to Seungwoo, second to himself. He pushes the towering wooden doors until they groan with permission, and Wooseok squares his shoulders as soon as the path before them presents two familiar faces waiting at the end. 

As they approach, Seungwoo sees for himself—for the first time—that the King does look smaller, sicker, weaker than he remembers. There’s a fierceness to his gaze though that is constant, amplified when he takes in the sight of his son before him. 

“Sit,” he tells them, before either Wooseok or Seungwoo can bow. “Speak comfortably.” 

They seat themselves promptly opposite the King and Queen, the only barrier between them the same mahogany table they’d hidden behind the first time the Queen called them in. It feels like decades ago, but it’s only just been a few months. 

From beside him, Wooseok clenches his hands into fists to keep from shaking. Seungwoo’s discreet, again, with the way he reaches over to wrap his hand over Wooseok’s, squeezing gently. It’s like he’s practiced the motions. Everything’s always easier the second time around. 

“How was your trip to America?” the Queen asks, voice kind, the smile on her lips genuinely curious. “Your father and I are very pleased with how your meetings went. We’ve only heard positive things about you from our colleagues.” 

“It was fine,” Wooseok replies. “It was everything I anticipated and everything I prepared for.”

“You’ll have to get used to it,” the King adds, looking fixedly at Wooseok’s face, as though expecting something to the contrary of what he’s getting. “You requested a meeting, so I assume it’s something of importance. What is it?” 

Wooseok inhales and exhales slowly, deliberately, the steady rise and fall of his chest betraying the way his hands tremble. “I’ve lied to you,” he confesses. “And I’ve dragged Seungwoo hyung into my mess as always, so I hope you’ll only hold this against me.”

“Wooseok,” his mother starts to say, and she says it like she knows, _has known_, but her son shakes his head, rejecting her lifeline. 

Seungwoo’s frozen in his seat, too. He isn’t sure what he was expecting Wooseok to say, but it’s not this. 

“We were never in a relationship,” Wooseok admits, and it’s strange how resigned the smile on his lips is—as though he’s come to terms with something on his own. “I was tired of being asked the same question by people who were looking for a specific answer I wasn’t ready to provide. So, I asked Seungwoo hyung to help me. I just wanted to deflect the wrong attention while I proved myself to you. I don’t want to marry a stranger just for the throne.” He looks down at his hand, at Seungwoo’s hand, and then locks eyes with his father, unwavering. “I’ll do it alone if I have to, but I don’t want to make these huge sacrifices without knowing what they’ll amount to in the future. Not just for myself, but whoever it is I might have married. I don’t think that’s fair to them, to me—I don’t think that makes sense.” 

“You can’t rule a nation on your own, Wooseok,” the King says sharply. He doesn’t seem as upset about the lie—seems more disappointed at Wooseok’s following declarations. “We’ve seen your ability and we know you’re diligent and capable, but this isn’t something that an extra hour’s worth of preparation will make feasible.”

“Why would you lie to us, Wooseok?” asks the Queen, her tone forlorn. She doesn’t resent him, never could, but her own heartbreak is visible. “If you’d just told us the truth—”

“I did, I have, and to be quite honest, you weren’t listening,” Wooseok interjects. “I know I shouldn’t have lied. I’ll take full responsibility for that portion, but… I—I wasn’t lying about everything. I mean, at the very least, it’s true. I’ve been in love with Seungwoo hyung since I was sixteen.”

Time suspends itself and Seungwoo’s composure loses momentum, strength; he falters, gaze flickering from the audience before them to the side of Wooseok’s face. The young man’s shoulders are straight, his eyes unmoving from his parents’ faces, the aura of confidence billowing about him like a cape. 

He can’t speak. Can’t find the words. 

“If he wanted to rule with me, maybe I’d take the throne beside him. But he doesn’t, I know he doesn’t. I asked him to help me because it made the most sense. I couldn’t ask Jinhyuk, not when he’s already happy with someone else. Couldn’t ask anyone else—they wouldn’t get it. I asked Seungwoo hyung because I knew that at least I wouldn’t have to lie about my feelings, not to the palace, not to the people, not to you. The past few months have been challenging and I’ve worked as hard as I can to prove that I can manage alone. The past few months are nothing compared to what I’m willing to do to exceed your expectations.” He hesitates before centering solely on the King. “To exceed your legacy.”

“This isn’t about my legacy, Wooseok,” his father tells him, and the sharp edge to his voice vacillates, like he’s struggling to find the right space to respond. “This isn’t about our expectations of you. We’ve never doubted your ability. This is about you.” 

“We just want you to be—”

“I’ll support him,” Seungwoo cuts in, the words leaving his mouth before he has the chance to think anything through. “I’ll watch over him,” he promises, his words an echo of the first time the Queen had expressed her concerns. “I—” _love him._

“Hyung.” Wooseok brushes a thumb across the slope of his hand placatingly. “That’s not necessary.”

“Wooseok, this isn’t something you have to bear alone,” his mother urges. 

“I told you I would rule alone if I have to.” Wooseok’s smile grows apologetic. “But the truth is, I don’t want the throne at all. I never have.” 

Seungwoo isn’t surprised. He’s known—had pieced it together over the past few weeks. What shocks him is neither the King nor the Queen look taken aback either. If anything, they look regretful, penitent. They’ve known too—of course they have. They know their son better than they know anything else, and to think they had to bear the guilt of pushing him into a mold he never wanted to grow into. 

“I know this is my responsibility as the eldest son, but I don’t think it’s a secret that between the two of us, Minkyu’s always looked more like a king. But it’d be too unfair to force him to carry this burden just because he has an older brother who’s incapable of doing it himself.” 

“You aren’t incapable,” Wooseok’s father pronounces.

“I know. I know I’m not. In the event that something terrible does happen and I have to assume the throne, I will. I’m wholly prepared to do that, but I’m not prepared to keep it.” Wooseok doesn’t break his concentration, not even for a second. “I’m not _willing_. I’ll be king until Minkyu’s ready.”

“This is your birthright,” his mother whispers, her eyes teary with remorse. 

“I don’t think it would be fair to Korea for someone like me to be their King for long,” Wooseok confesses, a small chuckle sneaking out of him. “In the time I’ve spent with Seungwoo hyung I’ve been able to see a lot of the corners of the city that don’t get enough attention. I don’t think I’d be able to rule as rationally as I’d like, knowing I can’t be present everywhere. I want to befriend the city. For someone like me, the throne is like a shackle. For someone like Minkyu, it’s a stepping stone.” 

“Have you spoken to your brother about this?” Wooseok’s mother asks. 

“I have. Not in detail because I didn’t want him to worry, but I told him that this was what I envisioned for him, for his future. I asked him what he thought.” The exhale Wooseok lets out trembles with him. “And he said he trusted me. I would never decide anything recklessly and risk Minkyu’s trust.” 

Seungwoo thinks back to his first conversation with Minkyu after the scandal broke out, how the younger boy had seemed awfully conflicted, concerned about the secrets Wooseok was keeping. So Wooseok’s been running through this conversation in his mind for even longer than Seungwoo anticipated, carrying the weight of an uncertain future on his shoulders like a punishment. 

For a moment, no one says a single word. The entire space falls hauntingly quiet, Wooseok’s parents looking upon him with unreadable expressions. 

The King, his father, exhales shakily, looking smaller by the second, exhaustion settling in his weary bones. “Do you know what you’re giving up right now?” He levels his gaze, focuses his attention on Wooseok, the firm line his lips had been pressed into easing, resigning, into something less austere. “This was never meant to be the burden it became.”

“I never wanted it to be either,” Wooseok says, a soft smile on his face. “But I’ve known since I was young that I didn’t want to be king. I’ll do what I have to until Minkyu’s ready. I’m prepared for that. I just don’t want to keep lying to you, to anyone, to myself. Not anymore.” 

The morning sun grows brighter by the second, light peeking in past spotless windows, casting rays on everyone’s figures. The fatigue Wooseok’s been wearing like a second skin seems to fade with each passing moment, the peace he’s found settling into his body by the handful. 

He wears his confidence like a crown—a crown vastly different from the one he was forced to balance.

Across him, the King and the Queen wipe their pity and their guilt away, replacing their own crowns with their hearts, recalling that the boy in front of them is their son first, the Crown Prince second. 

“We’ll discuss it,” Wooseok’s father finally says. “For now, you and Seungwoo are dismissed. Don’t dwell on this. It’s out of your hands.” 

“And Wooseok?” his mother calls out at the last second, as they’re rising from their seats. “We forgive you, and we’re sorry for not listening.” 

Seungwoo moves to release Wooseok’s hand but Wooseok doesn’t let him. 

“It’s fine,” Wooseok replies, clasping a little tighter. “I suppose I could have been louder.” 

* * *

And then it’s just the two of them, idling by the entryway of the inner palace. If Seungwoo wanted to, he might be able to convince himself that they’ve gone back in time—that if he’s quick, he might be able to prevent all of this from happening in the first place.

But he blinks and nothing changes. Beside him, Wooseok staggers, a shudder of a breath leaving him in relief. Seungwoo’s own throat feels tight, constricted. Even now, he isn’t sure if he has the right words to say. 

“You worked so hard to prove yourself to your parents,” he tries. “Are you sure you don’t want this? Wooseok, you were _so_ close. If you’re scared, then I’ll—”

“I’m sure.” Wooseok wobbles when he takes another step forward and Seungwoo barely catches him by the arm. He lingers there by Wooseok’s side, feels a strange pang of nostalgia, as though it’s been years since they’ve found themselves in each other’s company like this. “Sorry. It’s still nerve-wracking talking to my parents like that.” 

Seungwoo smiles faintly, heartstrings tugged uselessly from Wooseok’s direction. “You really aren’t scared of anything,” he breathes out, shaking his head. “Scary.” 

“I’ve been working up the courage for a while,” Wooseok mutters, patting his pockets for his glasses. He must have left them behind somewhere because he clicks his tongue in disdain soon after. 

“Wooseok,” Seungwoo tries again, “are you sure?” _Did you mean everything you said_? he doesn’t ask.

“I told you, I’m sure,” Wooseok repeats. “I’ve been thinking about this for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to keep secrets from anyone anymore.” 

“Then that’s that.” He doesn’t have anything to add. Who is he to push Wooseok one way or the other? All he wants is for the younger to have some peace of mind. 

“When I told my mom that I’d be happy…” Wooseok trails off. “When I told her being with you would make me happy the first time we spoke with her, I was lying. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if I was just setting myself up for disappointment, for heartbreak. I just felt like I had to do it, had to lie to her because maybe if I said it out loud, I’d believe it.

“You were just—_so confusing_. It was annoying. Sometimes, you’d look at me like I might shatter if you touched me. Other times, I couldn’t tell what you were thinking at all. When I dragged you into my mess, I thought I could figure that question out too along the way, but when my mom asked me if I’d be happy, I realized I might not be. Not if the answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear.” 

He’s getting too used to these silences, where even his heart feels too loud. 

“You can tell me now,” Wooseok says, his voice so low that Seungwoo almost misses it.

“Tell you what?”

“I asked you back when everything first started—to let me know if I’m being selfish. You can tell me I’m selfish now.” 

“Are you happy?” Seungwoo asks instead. “If you’re happy, then how could I call you selfish? You’re only human.”

Wooseok stops walking, his expression stained with something bittersweet, the smile on his face pensive. A shadow cast over him as he stills, motionless beneath the shade. “Tell me I’m selfish so I can resent you for _something_, hyung.”

The thought of Wooseok resenting him is enough for Seungwoo to skid to stop too. “Why would I want you to resent me?”

“Because that would make this so much easier for me.” 

“Wooseok—”

“I’m in love with you, hyung. I’ve _been_ in love with you since I was sixteen. Every story I told anyone about our fake relationship was real to me. I told you I didn’t want to marry some ambassador’s kid because there was already somebody that I wanted to rule with. I told you that they didn’t want the throne, that I’d rather rule alone than without them. That was all true. That was _all_ about you.” Wooseok’s trembling ever-so-slightly, trying his best to look composed. “I’m in love with you. I know I shouldn’t be. I know _you_ can’t be. So please tell me I’m being selfish so I can start to whittle away at this stupid first love I’ve been clinging to for way too long.” 

In a matter of seconds, they are the present, the past, and if Seungwoo searches, maybe the future. 

The Wooseok in front of him is the same Wooseok that held his hands out in Seungwoo’s place when he was sixteen; the same Wooseok that sprinted to him at the age of eight to ask about the implications of _forever_; the same Wooseok that looked at him outside of a beat-up arcade at the tender age of twenty-four as though the world might end if Seungwoo didn’t kiss him then and there. 

“What happens now?” Seungwoo presses. “You’re not going to be the King anymore?” 

“What?” Wooseok frowns, clearly thrown off by Seungwoo’s response. “They’ll think it over and then I’ll… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll finally get to do what I want. Maybe I can travel like Jinhyuk. Maybe I can find curate some art and replace the ugly paintings in the library, meet more people without the false pretenses—I, hyung, are you just going to ignore me?”

“What about me?”

“Hyung?” The color drains from Wooseok’s face at the question and he falters visibly, something between a laugh, a gasp, a scoff leaving his lips. “I don’t know. I guess you can leave—”

“No, Wooseok, _what about me_? What do I have to do if I want to stay with you?” 

“Aren’t you going a little too far? I get it. You’re good at pretending until the bitter end, but that’s not—”

“I’m not—”

“Please stop getting my hopes up. Please. _Stop_.” 

“Wooseok.” Seungwoo can’t help the way his heart always seems to be two sizes too big when he’s in Wooseok’s company. He’s Seungwoo’s Wooseok again—not the Crown Prince, not the King-to-be, not anyone _but_ Kim Wooseok, who was once eight years old and refused to go to sleep without Seungwoo pinky-promising he’d be by his side forever. “I don’t know if I was ever pretending.” 

This is Kim Wooseok, who was sixteen when he lingered at the palace gates in the shade of his mother’s favorite lilac tree, when he let a royal advisor lay an oak stick against his palms just so Seungwoo could sneak in without having to bear the same punishment. 

This is Kim Wooseok, who was _sixteen_ when he first fell in love with Han Seungwoo. 

“I don’t know what you’re saying anymore—”

“I’m saying I love you too.” He takes one step closer, barely notices that this is it: the same place _Seungwoo_ first fell in love. Everything does come around full circle, and if Seungwoo closes his eyes, he can still imagine the mid-autumn air all of those years ago, how he blamed the lingering humidity of summer for how suffocated he felt then, looking for excuses to justify the beating of his heart. “I love you too. You said you’d take care of me, right? That you’d look out for me?” 

Wooseok’s teeth catch his lower lip, a nervous habit, and he tries to look away but Seungwoo catches him, cradles Wooseok’s face with his hands. 

“Don’t leave me alone. I promised I’d stay by your side,” Seungwoo continues until they’re just centimeters apart. “For the time being, for longer than that—_forever_, if I remember correctly.”

“You’re the worst if you can’t even remember that,” Wooseok grits out, eyes like glass, rimmed with tears he stubbornly refuses to let fall. It’s so _like_ Wooseok that Seungwoo almost laughs.

“I’ve kept you waiting,” he apologizes, smiling before he presses a kiss to Wooseok’s forehead. And then to his cheeks, gradually making his way down to the corner of Wooseok’s mouth, drawing Seungwoo back to memories of their first almost-kiss at a museum full of resigned portraits. “I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?”

Wooseok squeezes his eyes shut, wrestling free from Seungwoo’s grip to pull himself even closer, to bury his face into Seungwoo’s chest—to hide his face.

“Are you sure?” Wooseok asks, voice muffled. “Are you sure you love me?” 

(Sunhwa’s voice vacillates, like she’s on the verge of choking up too, like she’s more afraid of what Seungwoo might give up than he’ll ever know: _Who are you thinking of right this second_?)

Seungwoo tilts his head back, feels a weight lift off of his shoulders, off of his heart. He wraps his arms around Wooseok, anchors him closer still, reeling him in. “I’m sure.”

(_Maybe they’re just as tired of hiding as you are._)

“I’m so sure it _hurts_,” Seungwoo says readily, waiting for Wooseok to show his face again, to peek past his own embarrassment to look up at Seungwoo. Their gazes lock and Seungwoo reaches up to brush Wooseok’s fringe away from his eyes.

“You can kiss me,” Wooseok says, answering the question Seungwoo had been thinking of. “You never should have asked that night outside the arcade.”

“I have the Crown Prince’s permission?” teases Seungwoo, relishing the way Wooseok’s arms loop around his neck, how his waist fits perfectly in the bend of Seungwoo’s hands. 

“You’re not kissing the Crown Prince right now, hyung,” Wooseok retorts, tone remarkably dry for how close it was to breaking just seconds ago. The half-smirk on Wooseok’s face ebbs into a smile, his eyes curving as he leans upward, waiting for Seungwoo to close the distance. “You’re kissing Kim Wooseok, who’s been in love with you since he was sixteen.”

Under the shade of the lilac tree, Seungwoo falls in love again.

Kissing Wooseok will always be easy, and the sentiment clings to him like a winter quilt as he chases Wooseok’s lips, catching them in the kiss he’s been unwittingly waiting, _yearning_ for. 

“It took so long,” Seungwoo whispers as they pull away.

Wooseok presses his lips to the corner of Seungwoo’s mouth. “It was worth it.” 

* * *

**Cho Seungyoun**

oh yeah forgot to send u this pic of wooseok on the plane lol  
check out this snoopy keychain he has hanging off of his bag  
he says it's his good luck charm

* * *

Minkyu finds him a day after the date for a long-awaited press conference is determined. Wooseok and Seungwoo are slated to come clean—at Wooseok’s request—in a matter of days, hopefully quieting down any rumors that there’s a deeper conspiracy being concealed by their relationship in the process.

“It’s a waste,” Minkyu announces, crestfallen. He’s still in his school uniform, the glasses perched atop his nose a carbon copy of Wooseok’s. Seungwoo still remembers the fit Minkyu had thrown at the prospect of getting anything _but_ the same design as his brother. “I mean… on me. Wooseok hyung‘s the one with the big ideas. He’s the one with the real ideas on how to lead the country, how to fix it. I just have big dreams. Big, stupid dreams.”

“Maybe that’s what Korea needs,” Seungwoo replies, slowing his gait when Minkyu starts to dawdle. “A little boy with big, stupid dreams.”

“I’m not a _little boy_ anymore, hyung,” huffs Minkyu. “My grandpa was my age when he took the throne a gazillion years ago, you know!”

“A giant baby with big, stupid dreams,” amends Seungwoo, savoring the way Minkyu’s indignation flares visibly.

“You’re the worst,” he groans harmlessly. And then, when silence settles comfortably between them again, he continues, quieter. “How can he be so confident I’m ready for this? When it’s all he’s been training for since he was born?”

Seungwoo had been puzzled too, at first. More than twenty years devoted to the throne and the throne alone and Wooseok was willing to lay it all down for a chance to breathe the way he wanted to, not the way he was taught. But Wooseok was right: Korea doesn’t need a king who doesn’t want to rule; it needs a king that will rule according to the heart, the type of person that won’t waver when pressed with the burden of rationality and politics. 

Wooseok is capable of being that person, but Minkyu is that person without even trying. 

“You’ve been training too,” Seungwoo points out. 

“Yeah, but not like hyung…” Minkyu puffs his cheeks out before sucking them back in. “How can he be so sure?”

“Your older brother pays a lot more attention to you than you think.”

“Are _you_ sure he isn’t just passing off the dirty laundry to me?” Minkyu narrows his eyes accusingly, and despite the gesture, Seungwoo knows he’s joking—trying to use humor to assuage his own lack of confidence. 

Seungwoo smiles, reaching out to place one palm atop Minkyu’s head. “He loves you a lot more than you think too.” 

The scowl Minkyu’s been wearing eases into something smaller, something less secure. He’d usually swat Seungwoo’s hand away, but today, he isn’t as resistant. “Do you…” He looks up at Seungwoo, expectantly, in anticipation. “Do you think I could be a good king someday?”

“I do,” Seungwoo says without missing a beat.

“Do you really?”

“I do.”

“I don’t,” admits Minkyu. “But if you do... if Wooseok hyung does... then maybe…” 

“You’d have to pay attention in English class,” Seungwoo sighs out.

Minkyu shoves Seungwoo’s hand off of his head, turning his nose up as primly as he can manage. “A small price to pay for the crown.”

By the time they make it to the main kitchen, the concerned crease between Minkyu’s brows has lessened and he’s chatting idly about some video game he borrowed from his _best friend Hyungjun_. The kitchen’s mostly empty, which is surprising at the palace—save for one person seated on the counter of all places, eating a bar of melon-flavored ice cream while scrolling through his phone. 

“There are chairs in the dining room,” Seungwoo announces, forgoing a typical greeting.

Wooseok looks up from his phone, gaze flickering from Seungwoo’s face to Minkyu’s face and then back to his phone. “No thank you. I’m comfortable here,” he replies smoothly.

“Sunhwa noona’s going to kill you if she finds out you’re sneaking ice cream out of the fridge, hyung,” Minkyu warns, making a beeline for the refrigerator.

“What are you doing here?” Wooseok asks.

“Sneaking ice cream out of the fridge. _Duh_,” Minkyu retorts before procuring an identical ice cream bar and hopping up onto the counter next to Wooseok. 

Seungwoo leans against the entryway, the amused smile on his face impossible to restrain. “Are you two brothers or something?” 

Both of the young princes look up at the same time, expressions nearly identically unimpressed as they roll their eyes at Seungwoo. The quiet that follows is natural, easy, and Seungwoo idles for a moment longer before considering leaving the two to exist in the same space. Before he has the chance to act on his thought, however, Wooseok speaks up, gaze still fixed on the screen before him, popsicle stick jutting out of his mouth.

It’s an air of apathy, but Minkyu can probably see through it just as well as Seungwoo can.

“Do you think you can do it?”

Minkyu centers his attention on Wooseok and his answer doesn’t come immediately, suspended in his throat, tugged down by the hesitation he’d swallowed back earlier with Seungwoo. “I don’t know,” he confesses, picking at a loose thread dangling from the sleeve of his blazer. “But I want to.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Wooseok reminds him, setting his phone beside him and finally meeting Minkyu’s eyes. “Don’t misunderstand what I said. If the time comes and you aren’t ready, I’ll wait until you are. If you are ready, I’ll still be here. I’m not abandoning you at the throne.”

“I never thought you were going to,” murmurs Minkyu, the lingering frown on his face lifting into the tiniest smile. “When have you ever thrown me to the wolves, hyung?”

“Yeah.” Wooseok pinches Minkyu’s cheek, doesn’t even flinch when the younger grimaces sullenly. “Don’t have any plans to either.”

“Hyung, I’ll support you too,” Minkyu says after Wooseok’s released him from his grip. “No matter what you do—” He scans the room before circling in on Seungwoo, the smile growing into a shit-eating grin as he bumps his shoulder against his brother’s. “No matter _who_ you do…” 

Wooseok balks but doesn’t say a word. It’s probably hard to when Seungwoo starts laughing as hard as he does, the hand hovering over his mouth doing little to hide his amusement. 

“I’m just saying,” Minkyu says with a shrug. “I want to cover all of my bases.” 

“_Minkyu_.”

“Hey.” Minkyu points a finger straight at Seungwoo. “You better take care of my brother. For _real_.” 

Seungwoo’s last laugh leaves him and he straightens his back, the remaining smile a constant against his features. He offers Minkyu a comical salute. “He’s the one taking care of me,” he corrects, and Seungwoo doesn’t miss the way Wooseok’s gaze falls on him—doesn’t miss the way Wooseok’s lips curve ever-so-slightly. “But I won’t let you down, Minkyu.”

* * *

He’s not particularly fond of cameras. 

Flashes go off periodically, the clicking sound of a thousand shutters echoing in Seungwoo’s head. It’s hard to stay focused when there’s so much going on in front of him. He isn’t usually the center of the attention. At press conferences like this one, Seungwoo’s more accustomed to lurking by the side, making sure Wooseok’s safety is intact. 

“I’m sorry it took us longer than anticipated to set this up,” Wooseok announces, his voice alone silencing the crowd before them. “We won’t be able to take many questions today, but I wanted to make sure that I could speak candidly about what, exactly, this relationship is and what it means to me.”

The crowd clamors for a few seconds before quieting itself again. 

“The truth is, it started off as a ruse. I will admit that. I wasn’t interested in dating or marrying anyone, so I decided I’d pretend I was in a relationship so I could focus on more important things without being forced to entertain distractions. It’s grown since then and I know it might be hard to believe me now, but the person beside me is the person I am seeing and the person that I love. I apologize for lying and I also apologize for taking this long to address the many questions that have been circulating, surrounding our relationship. I hope you will find it in you to forgive me for my recklessness and my deceit. Not once did I act without keeping the country’s best interest in mind. I wanted to work on myself without distraction.”

There’s a whispering among the crowd, cameras flashing again. 

“Was everything you said about your relationship a lie?” a familiar voice asks, loudly, piercing through the indistinct chatter, from the cluster of people before them. Seungwoo recognizes Jinhyuk and beside him, Byungchan, wearing similarly mischievous smiles. 

Wooseok, to his credit, doesn’t even miss a beat. “No,” he says. “The only part I lied about was being in an actual relationship with him from the start.”

“Crown Prince, over here! And what of the palace? Is it true that there are political problems arising that you were trying to cover up?” an actual reporter asks. “That there’s a fracture?” 

“No,” Wooseok repeats. “While I’m in no capacity to speak at length about my father’s politics and what the future holds, please trust me when I say that Korea is in good hands.”

“What about the King’s rumored illness? Are there plans being made for your assumption of the throne?”

“My father _was_ ill,” Wooseok says coolly. “He’s since recovered. There is no urgency in the palace surrounding the throne.” 

“Could we hear from Han Seungwoo?” Byungchan asks in an exaggeratedly high-pitched voice, a poor attempt at concealing it. “What does the Crown Prince mean to you?” 

Wooseok turns to look at Seungwoo then, raising a brow. 

Seungwoo makes a mental note to corner Byungchan later for being a nuisance the second he stepped foot in Korea. Still, he isn’t ashamed or embarrassed to be honest, not when they’ve come this far, and the truth is finally something Seungwoo can make peace with. 

“Wooseok?” Seungwoo corrects, pressing his hands together before settling them, folded, before him atop the table they’re seated at. He smiles like he’s housing a thousand and one secrets with zero intention of sharing them all. “Well,” he begins, humming pensively. “I guess I fell in love with him when I was seventeen and not much has changed since then.” 

* * *

The chaos of the press conference; the lingering tendrils of a master plan gone terribly, _terribly_ wrong are left at the palace gates. 

As overwhelming as the past two hours were, it’s easy to find peace and quiet at the palace. Jinhyuk and Byungchan are due to stop by later and Minkyu’s tackling his English lessons with a newfound vigor. Seungwoo’s received a few scattered text messages, mostly dramatic expressions of betrayal from Yohan (_hyung how could u LIE TO ME I LOOKED SO STUPID_), but no one’s thought to pester them since they arrived back at the palace. It’s like everyone knows—this is a time that ought to be shared between just the two of them.

So, it’s quiet. 

_Just the two of them_ sitting at a humdrum bench, watching the wind rustle the leaves of the Queen’s favorite lilac trees.

“Were you nervous?” Seungwoo asks, Wooseok’s hand light in his. “You seemed nervous before the reporters filed in, but I couldn’t tell when you started talking.” 

“A little bit,” Wooseok replies, his eyes fluttering to a close. “I wasn’t sure how they’d react, but it was easier because you were with me.” 

“Hm? That’s kind of cheesy,” he teases, using his free hand to brush Wooseok’s hair out of his eyes when the younger rests his head against Seungwoo’s shoulder. “You’re getting too soft.”

“Whose fault is that?” Wooseok grumbles. He relents when Seungwoo pokes at his forehead, smoothing the frown out of his features. “I used to think I’d be lonely for a long time, maybe forever. I used to think that loneliness was just a part of what my future required. I got greedy because of you.”

Seungwoo hums. “You can be greedy with me.”

“Is it okay that I don’t know where this is going to go?”

“Keep going,” Seungwoo says, because he wants to understand.

Wooseok exhales softly, mulling over his thoughts, his words, picking and choosing the ones he wants to share. “I know how I feel about you, I know how you feel about me, but… I don’t want to treat this like I’ve treated everything else in my life. I don’t want to plan things down to a tee and I don’t want to know what tomorrow or next week or next month or next year will promise me. I don’t want to get caught up in that.” 

“What do you want to do?” 

“Let’s take it step by step.” Wooseok opens his eyes then, angles himself so he can get a better look at Seungwoo’s expression. “We have a whole lifetime ahead of us.”

“What if I want to run?” Seungwoo presses, his tone teasing, the glint in his eyes playful.

“Walk with me, hyung,” Wooseok says, and there’s a smile in his voice. “Aren’t you tired of running too?”

He is. He’s tired of running, tired of sprinting, tired of racing the too-honest thumping of his heart. “You’re right,” he concedes, pressing his forehead to Wooseok’s. “Walking it is.”

What a daunting thing, not knowing what the future holds. But Seungwoo’s always been good at disguising his fears and Wooseok has always been good at dispelling them, nonetheless. He’s the furthest thing from brave, but there’s a special sort of strength that comes with knowing that whatever’s written in the stars might be asking to be rewritten. 

“Then,” begins Wooseok, “I’ll be in your care.”

“Yeah.” He leans closer, their lips barely brushing. “I’ll be in yours.”

Under the shade of the lilac tree, Seungwoo falls in love again, and again, and _again_. 

❀✿❀

_You must look closely_  
_to see that is it beautiful._  
_You must look longer_  
_to see that it is lovely._

_You are the same._

wildflower, na taejoo

**Author's Note:**

> fuck realism


End file.
